Paul Ryan Can Not Take the Truth So He Hides It with Legislation
Paul Ryan and other House Republicans voted along party lines “Adopting rules for the One Hundred Fifteenth Congress.” The vote was 234 Yeas to 193 Nays. Three Republicans voted with Democrats to block the new rules for the 115th Congress. No big deal, right? and the New Rules passed.
As many of you probably know, I have been writing about the PPACA/ACA/Obamacare since 2008; answering questions, presenting information, and rebutting the stories, outright lies, and silly remarks. I did a lot of Maggie Mahar’s editing to get her columns up on Angry Bear and subsequently became familiar with the healthcare law. Now before you attempt to get into this with me, I will say this; “it was not perfect; but, it was all we had for the time being.” Now we are going backwards. We will be worse off under the new healthcare law.
Typically, this is not big deal except Randian Paul Ryan stuck a couple of sentences into the new House Rules. Before I get there, I want to take this a step backwards and explain. I was angry enough after reading the Rules Change to write my Congressman Mike Bishop. This is unusual for me as it typically is a waste of time. They represent upwards of 700,000 people in high density states. It was never supposed to be that way until Congress decided to freeze the number of Reps in the House. If the number of constituents represented had stayed at 60,000; my vote and opinion would have counted for more when drop kicking him across the room. There is a reason they did this and if they did not do this, the number of Reps would have been much higher.
I wrote Congress Person Mike and started explaining how Senator Sessions with the help of Rep Upton also from Michigan wrote the GAO asking why the HHS could appropriate funds. The GAO said they could not; but, the GAO left an opening for the HHS and the Administration by stating they could transfer funds from other programs into the Risk Corridor program. The Risk Corridor program for the PPACA is a 3-year program. Since there was a lot of risk for insurance companies and Co-ops, it was established along the same lines as the one for Part D Medicare which the Republicans created. An insurance company was limited to 3% profit,. If you made more than that, you kicked into the program a ratio of those profits. The higher the profit, the more you kicked in. If you lost money as the new Co-ops did, the program gave them money if the loss was greater than 3%. The CBO estimated the Risk Corridor program would generate $16 billion over its 3 year life time. Companies were taking on people who were denied insurance before due to pre-existing conditions. It was a higher risk and no one could be sure how many high risk insured they would get. They could not deny insuring them or increase premiums. This worked well for Part D.
Session and Upton were able to make the Risk Corridor program budget revenue neutral so the HHS and administration could not appropriate funds for it. They enlisted the aid of Rep Jack Kingston Appropriations Panel Chairman who stuck a sentence in Section 227 of the 2015 Appropriations Act (dated December 16, 2014). The sentence said; no
“funds made available by this Act from the Federal Hospital Insurance Trust Fund or the Federal Supplemental Medical Insurance Trust Fund, or transferred from other accounts funded by this Act to the “Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services–Program Management” account, may be used for payments under section 1342(b)(1) of Public Law 111-148 (relating to risk corridors).”
If you are wondering why Co-ops went bankrupt, healthcare premiums started to go up, insurance companies withdrew, and insurances companies lost millions; here is the reason why. So I laid this treachery on Congressman Mike Bishop.
I then proceeded to tell him that under reconciliation, you can not create a budget deficit. This would happen with the repeal of the PPACA. In Summer of 2016, the CBO estimated it would be ~$350 billion.
Now, back to my Roll Call on New House Rules. Randian Paul Ryan stuck a few sentence into the House Rules for the 115th Congress. Here is what they said:
“This subsection shall not apply to any bill or joint resolution, or amendment thereto or conference report thereon –
(A) repealing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and title I and subtitle B of title II of the Health Care and Education Affordability Reconciliation Act of 2010;
(B) reforming the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and the Health Care and Education Affordability Reconciliation Act of 2010.”
In simple English here is what it meant; the CBO could not review the Repeal of the PPACA and the costs associated with it. My question to Congressperson Mike Bishop was; “Why did you vote yes to this knowing you were covering up the truth and creating a budget defict?”
Not that I will get one; but, I asked for a return reply.
Why would they want anyone to know the cost of their actions?
These people are stone cold evil human beings.
And the man who now leads their party is one of the most evil human beings to ever live.
Meanwhile, progressives still talk about the primary.
Hiding data (of costs) is never a good thing. This is the sort of thing that the Democrats should campaign on. It is not just Orwellian, it is very easy to present it as such. But I seem to recall other times the Federal Government was prevented from collecting or disseminating data of one or other sort, and the Democrats have yet to make this Orwellian practice a campaign issue. And as long as there are no consequences, the other side will keep doing it.
No Taxation Without Documentation”
Till we eliminate health insurance from health care; health care will be more about supporting the 1.5 billion dollar parasite called health insurance.
beene:
That is a funny comment you made. Many people come here and point to foreign countries having cheaper healthcare and better healthcare. Oh, give me that model of healthcare. Yes I agree healthcare is expensive as it is not regulated in the US. In other countries, it is regulated by the government. With a few changes, we could have a similar model of healthcare in the US as what you might find in 99% of European countries. One in which the government pays a large portion of the healthcare costs and the individual pays what is ever left over out of pocket or has “insurance” to cover the percentage left over. As you may know a 10% out of pocket may not be much until you have that $100,00 procedure(s) and then it is $10,000.
The Individuals Healthcare Market is what is driving much of the issue today. If we examine it, we would find those making greater than 400% FPL are the loudest in complaints. That is a pretty good amount of salary. They want the same subsidy as those make less than 400% FPL. It could happen; but, there would have to be some changes made such as limiting the type of care you receive (has to be quality related, proven results per dollar), the gov. would start to tell healthcare what they can provide and at what price, and you would be paying some more in taxes.
Really, a $1.5 billion dollar parasite? The gov subsidizes the Employer Healthcare Insurance parasite to the tune of $250 billion. It is painfully obvious you did not pick up anything I wrote here and the other post I referenced. You just ambled on over to the comments section and decided to make some remark which has no basis. I am pretty patient; but, I do have an end to it.
I am a bit confused over the first half of this concerning the Risk Corridor funding. Was it that the funding of the Risk Corridors was stopped or was it that funds that the Congress had appropriated for other purposes within HHS could not be steered to cure underfunding of the Risk Corridors? Did the Risk Corridors got the money the act intended and it proved not to be enough or did Congress somehow take that money away?
Eric:
In order to answer your question, I have to go back to the entire article. There is another part to this also which I have to pull together in order to answer you. Please be patient, I will be back.
“Really, a $1.5 billion dollar parasite? The gov subsidizes the Employer Healthcare Insurance parasite to the tune of $250 billion.”
My figure is about the cost only of the Parasitic Health Insurance Industry not the cost of Health coverage.
Beene,
That $250 billion is not the cost of health coverage. It is the tax benefits from employer provided insurance.
EM:
Which is a cost.
EMichael, thanks for the help.
If we want to cut health care cost and cover everyone.
“H.R. 676 – the Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act – was introduced last night!
TODAY is the National Call-In Day. Please call your legislator and ask them to co-sponsor the bill!
This is representative John Conyers’ 14th year introducing H.R. 676, which would establish a national single payer healthcare system. 51 co-sponsors have already signed on – click the link to see if your representative is one of them.
Call your legislator TODAY and ask them to co-sponsor the bill!”
More………..https://www.healthcare-now.org/blog/national-call-in-day-for-hr-676/
run
why do you suppose we don’t read about this sort of thing in the New York Times, or hear about it on Newshour?
Washington Post wrote about this in 2015. I am writing about this now. I do not see NC carrying this or EV carrying this and it is the facts. mam as Sgt Friday might say. My links hold up.
Paul Ryan cannot TELL the truth… please forgive the segue into something closely related.
The Senate was interviewing a Trump appointee the other day who was telling them that Social Security must be changed to save it. Bernie Sanders was questioning him about Trump’s promise to leave SS alone.
Appointee said all he could do was ” to tell Trump the truth”… that “it must be changed now or worse things will come.”
And Sanders had nothing to say but “..but he promised.”
Apparently letting a politician lie in your face and lie to the public is one of those professional courtesies extended across the aisle.
Of course, Sanders is a busy man, and like all Congressmen he is carefully guarded from hearing from the people he represents, so he probably doesn’t know about raising the payroll tax one tenth of one percent per year.
Coberly:
Both you and I know it is a lie. The king is not wearing any clothes as his eunuchs will not tell him his pot belly is not worth seeing. “But he promised” coming from Sanders? How pitiful coming from a man who was kicking HRC all over the place. What a weak champion we have in Sanders.
run
i wasn’t questioning your facts. i was questioning the willingness of the “liberal press” to tell us what we need to know.
i am surprised that the Washington Post carried it. less surprised that no one noticed.
coberly:
Relax, I know you were not arguing with my words. I supplied some links on the original post too. I have more if you wish to read them.