Episode 354 – Non-Repeal Obamacare Repeal

 

Mandeville, LA – Exclusive Transcript – Obamacare was repealed yesterday, allegedly.  I spent a little time yesterday and this morning reading the repeal.  It’s not a repeal.  That didn’t stop the House conservatives from glad-handing one another in front of CSPAN and Fox News cameras and patting each other on the back for a repeal job well done, to celebrate the non-repeal repeal of Obamacare.  Check out today’s transcript for the rest….

Begin Mike Church Show Transcript

Mike:  Obamacare was repealed yesterday, allegedly.  I spent a little time yesterday and this morning reading the repeal.  It’s not a repeal.  That didn’t stop the House conservatives from glad-handing one another in front of CSPAN and Fox News cameras and patting each other on the back for a repeal job well done, to celebrate the non-repeal repeal of Obamacare.  I have the story here.  From CNBC, “Republican Obamacare replacement bill passes House.”  If you watch this on Fox News, or if you go to the usual conservative suspect websites, you will be led to believe that Obamacare was repealed.  It wasn’t repealed.  Nothing of the sort.  As a matter of fact, they actually – I know that President Trump went out there, [mocking] “It’s gonna be a great bill.  I tweeted this out.  Believe me.”  Obamacare is going to be fixed.  The Affordable Care Act, the American Healthcare Act is going to fix this, do this, do that.  What they didn’t tell you is – listen to this, “Highlights of the GOP bill”:

[reading]

Increase the amount of premium subsidies for younger adults, and reduce the amount for older adults, while allowing subsidies to be used to buy individual plans outside Obamacare exchanges.

[end reading]

Mike:  I don’t need to go any further than that to blow the lid off of this.  Let’s read that again.  “Increase the amount of premium subsidies.”  What’s a subsidy?  Subsidy is a funding mechanism.  If you don’t have the money to fund the repair of your automobile, then you might ask your mother or father to subsidize it.  Here’s a question for conservatives who are opposed to government-run healthcare and socialized medicine.  Where is the subsidy going to come from that has now been increased?  Where are you going to get the money?

[reading]

Allow older adults to be charged premiums that are five times higher than premiums charged younger adults, instead of the 3:1 ratio established by Obamacare.

[end reading]

Mike:  Again, what is the general government of the United States setting premium rates for private insurers?  What does that mean?  All of our healthcare costs are going to go down.  Not if you’re a geezered citizen they aren’t.  By the by, if you really want to fix this, then you don’t have any premium rate mandates.  You let an insurance provider charge what the insurance provider needs to receive in order to vend the service.  There are these things in insurance called actuarial tables.  Perhaps you’ve heard of them.  [mocking] “Mitter Church, that’s for life insurance.”  They have actuarial tables for health insurance and car insurance.  They put in what they’re paying out and what their risk factors are.  From that, they get a general average and they can set a rate.  That’s how a market would set a rate.

For example, yesterday during the Constitution Hour, we talked about, when we did our ESPN segment, Professor Gutzman made the signal point that ESPN has been kneecapped not by the federal government – the federal government had absolutely nothing to do with it.  The marketplace had something to do with it.  I’ve been predicting this for several years now, that Bubba, your average ESPN watcher, was not going to sit through alleged sports broadcasts that weren’t really sports broadcasts anymore.  Instead, they were broadcasts designed to feature whoever the broadcaster is, their point of view on any particular subject of political discussion, or moral discussion, whether it be homosexuality, transgenderism, race riots in Ferguson.  ESPN is still vending this.  The story that we based this on was Linda Cohn was asked: Do you think ESPN’s fortunes have declined because you stopped covering sports and became MSNBC Lite?  She basically confessed yes.  The reason that that matters coming from Linda Cohn is because she’s an actual sportscaster.  She actually does sports.  She does them well.

That’s the market determining the fortune of ESPN, much as the market should determine the fortune of Aetna health insurance.  The market should determine the fortune of Cigna health insurance.  The market should determine the fortune of the Aflac duck.  If Aflac can’t make money selling insurance policies, too bad.  Go out of business like everybody else does.  What has Congress done?  They have made sure that the general government of the United States runs life-saving industry.  Let me repeat that.  They’re guaranteed now, in perpetuity, forever more, the federal government now administers a life-saving or life-preserving or life-extending industry.  That’s what the medical services industry is.  That’s what it does.  Listen to this.  Here’s what’s in the repeal/replace bill.  I almost didn’t believe this when I read this, so I had to look it up.  It actually is in there.

[reading]

Impose a premium penalty for people who do not maintain continuous health coverage.

[end reading]

Mike:  Gee, I wonder who that benefits?  Mr. and Mrs. consumer of health insurance plans, if you have the unmitigated gall and audacity to let your insurance lapse, maybe you’re getting it from your employer.  Maybe the company that you were buying it from went out of business or stopped selling that policy.  You decided: I can’t afford that premium anymore; I’m not going to buy it.  Then someone else comes along and says: Hey, I’ve got a premium for you.  You can now be penalized, thanks to Congress, for not continuing your precious health insurance coverage.  Instead of calling this the Repeal and Replace Act, they should call it the Health Insurance Industry Bailout Act of 2017.  What was questionable has now been made permanently questionable.

Christopher:  They still have to go through the Senate.

Mike:  That’s the other part of this.  Many pro-life groups, Family Research Council included, are saying: Hey, they actually defunded Planned Parenthood.  Well, it’s not really a de-fund.  It is a rescission of a previous allocation of funds.  Here’s where this gets dicey and probably damns the whole thing.

Christopher:  Loaded dice.  They always fall in their favor.

Mike:  They exempted themselves.  Everybody in the United States has to be governed by RyanCare, GOPCare, TrumpCare, whatever you want to call it bill, except Congress.  Congress is exempted.  Before they went to pass the bill, the last motion, the amendment added to it was that Congress is exempted and they all voted for it.

Christopher:  I watched it on CSPAN.  The vote, exemption for Congress for the healthcare bill, was the vote right before they passed the bill.

Mike:  How many of them voted for it?

Christopher:  All but 20 Republicans.

Mike:  All but 20 Republicans voted to exempt themselves.  Awesome to have a job like that, ain’t it?

[reading]

Convert Medicaid funding for states to a block-grant system. [Mike: I’m reading you the highlights of this monstrosity.]

Give states power to request waivers for insurers that allow them to charge people with pre-existing health conditions higher premiums if they let coverage lapse.

[end reading]

Mike:  I’m going to give you an example of a preexisting condition.  I’m an arsonist.  I burned a house down.  I went to jail for five years for arson.  I get out.  I get my life straight.  I’m still an arsonist.  I somehow managed to get a mortgage to buy a new home, contingent upon that I can provide homeowner’s insurance to insure the property.  I’m an arsonist, right?  I go to an insurer and say: Hey, how about a little insurance?  The insurer goes: Dude, you’re an arsonist.  Please it’s a preexisting condition.  You have to insure me, and you can’t charge me the appropriate rate.

Would anyone in their right mind think that the insurer or insurers should not be able to deny coverage to the arsonist?  [mocking] “Mitter Church, arson is committed with freewill, you idiot.  When an arsonist burns a house down, Mr. Church, they do it of their own freewill.  When I get diabetes, I didn’t do it of my own freewill, so they have to cover me.”  Maybe you got diabetes which pretty much did not exist prior to the modern age and high fructose corn syrups being inserted into everything that we consume.  There is a genetic diabetes.  Most Americans have type 2.  As a matter of fact, almost every new case of diabetes is type 2.

I’m just using that as an example.  Why should an insurance company have to insure that when it comes to having to provide a subsidy or insurance payment, or the drug that treats it?  Folks, this is an old argument.  I’m not breaking any new ground here.  All of you know this argument.  I’m just reinforcing the point that it’s been made permanent now thanks to the conservative party in Congress.  Again, the very large point here is, as it pertains to conservatism and to the fantasy world, sand castle world that most “conservatives” live in.  There is no tomorrow.  There is no future that is devoid of the federal government meddling in your affairs, unless you totally withdraw your consent, unless we construct a new mainstream.  That’s what the charge is.  That’s where we have to go.

End Mike Church Show Transcript