Tuesday, January 10, 2017

If Obamacare Isn't Gutted Blame Rand Paul

Rand Paul: Stop the gutting of Obamacare.
This is just terrible.

The Washington Post reports:
President-elect Donald Trump may be joining the growing ranks of Republicans in Washington who are getting cold feet about plans to rush through a vote to repeal Obamacare without a plan to replace it.

Trump called Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) this weekend to discuss Paul’s push to convince the rest of the GOP not to vote later this week on a budget resolution that includes a framework for a vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act without a replacement plan. Paul said he spoke with Trump for approximately 15 minutes Friday and the two agreed on the need for replacement.
The one good thing Donald Trump may have had is momentum on gutting Obamacare. But it appears that Rand's "concern" about linking repeal of Obamacare and the budget appears to have just been cover to halt the repeal of Obamacare without an immediate government replacement.

Got that? Rand wants to repeal government intervention in the healthcare sector and replace it with government intervention in the healthcare sector.

More from The Washington Post:
“My view is that replacement should try to get insurance for as many people as possible,” Paul said.
And just like that we put Rand back in the camp of government technocrats who are not working to tear down government intervention in free markates but who just want to tweak it and keep the core intervention.

 -RW

9 comments:

  1. Shame on me for being disappointed by Rand yet again. I figured he'd at least be better than Trump on this but NOPE...

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  2. This apple may not have fallen far from the tree, but it looks like it's still rolling...

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  3. I think the more titillating part of this article was near the end:

    "Cassidy said Monday that he wants to move quickly to repeal 'onerous' parts of the health-care law, such as the requirement for individual health coverage, as long as there is a plan and timeline for completing a replacement.

    The Senate is expected to vote this week on a budget measure that includes instructions for committees to write repeal legislation by the end of the month. But some Republicans are raising concerns that a replacement may never happen if it is delayed.

    ...it is far easier for Congress to pass a repeal bill than it is for it to pass any kind of replacement. Republican leaders are relying on special budget procedures to repeal Obamacare without the threat of a blockade by Senate Democrats.

    Budget legislation can pass the Senate with a majority of 51 votes rather than the normal 60 needed for almost everything else. There are 52 Republicans in the Senate, ensuring that a unified GOP can act without the help of Democrats.

    But passing a replacement is another story. Any new health-care legislation would be subject to normal Senate rules — meaning Republicans would need votes from at least eight Democrats to get the new bill passed.

    ‘We’re possibly creating a boxed canyon for ourselves by potentially repealing without replacing,’ Corker said. ‘On the other hand, I realize the difficulties of getting — the other way you need 60 votes, right? And I don’t see a lot of appetite by Democrats to sit down and try to work some things through.’”

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  4. Repealing obamacare just changes government intervention into medical care. It doesn't repeal a century of intervention into the sector. So what are the instabilities and unseen effects of just repealing a single intervention? It is not as if things will go back to the way they were before Obamacare. It's not like the remaining interventions and the damage done by Obamacare are going to result in something better. Could be a lot worse.

    Repealing obamacare doesn't fix the high prices that previous interventions created. Remember Obamacare is only a method to tap wealth so those who cannot afford the high prices can still access services. It's an intervention to deal with the effects of previous interventions. Removing it doesn't create a free market it just moves to another state of intervention.

    So Rand Paul doesn't understand the problem because he doesn't know how things got the way they are. That's about 99.9% of americans.

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  5. I know there is some outrageous price gouging going on. Maybe they can fix that. There was a story about a 9.7 trillion dollar price tag on the repeal.

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  6. Looks like Trump has DK'd Rand. I just saw (4 PM EST) something over at 0Hedge saying Trump wants to move ahead with the immediate repeal of "catastophic" Obamacare. Hope so...

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  7. Ok, Rand knows austrian economics as much as or better than you jobless, Mises quoting mouth breathers. He has said many times that the question is how do you gradually bring about change, in the system we have now and not endlessly agitate about the pie in the sky. Try saying "just end government and healthcare will take care of itself" and see what happens in the senate. You Libertards never seem to have run or achieved anything in your lives.

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    1. Such vitriol.

      There were 6 comments that proceeded yours, 3 of those showed dissapointment in Rand. You then proceeded to bash not only the other 3, but apparently every living libertarian, because of the response of those 3. Does showing dissappointment in Rand Paul for this response really turn them into agitating mouth breathers? You determined all that from just those responses? You are good.

      Do you have any proof that RW, Mises, libertarians, etc have a lower employment rate than others?

      Do you think that everyone in this same group wants to try to fix health care by "Just ending government"?

      I could just as easily reply to your last sentence with something like "You and your kind have apparently never witnessed the production of anything without the help of elected bureaucrats".

      "Libertards" who've never run or achieved anything in their lives:

      John Mackey
      Peter Thiel
      Jeff Bezos
      Michael Arrington
      Drew Carey
      Clint Eastwood
      Paul Singer
      Thomas Sowell
      Penn Jillette & Teller
      Mark Spitznagel
      Charles & David Koch
      John McAfee
      Russel Means
      Rupert Murdoch
      Andrew Napolitano
      Dave Barry
      Robert Nozick
      Ron Paul
      Justin Raimondo
      Kurt Russell
      Jimmie Vaughan
      Peter Schiff
      Michael Shermer
      John Popper
      John Stossel
      Jesse Ventura
      Rufus Wainwright
      Jimmy Wales
      Montell Williams

      And me, as I'm quite proud of what I've achieved in my life having come from absolutely nothing and comfortably supporting a family of five. I would also include many other successful peers and business owners I've met over the years.

      It's a bit strange to see attempts to claim libertarians are under-achievers. This is the kind of comment I expect to hear from those completely ignorant of the subject - those also claiming all libertarians are pot smokers, etc. The left would claim the opposite, that "Libertarianism is rational for rich white people".

      You're just a broken record from the other side of the political DC beltway spectrum. But a blue-pill taker nonetheless.

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  8. Although Paul's plan is not anarcho-capitalist, it's not that bad compared to most of the "replacement plans" I've heard, and IMHO, you are mischaracterizing it. In the political world, replacing the plan quickly will keep the Democrats from being able to regroup and stop any free-market reforms. Within the last day, Paul has at least partially detailed his plan. It is not perfect by any means, but it's probably at the far edge of what can possibly pass congress, and it's way better than Obamacare, or most of the replacements being floated that seem to be intent on forcing taxpayers to cover insurance on people which is at the heart of the economic dynamic that forces insurance rates to skyrocket.

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