Obamacare repealed...then what?

[pbrower2a]

I expect the Republicans to replace Obamacare with "Profits First" medicine that will be even costlier... and substandard. After all, corporate profits and executive compensation will be the only measure of economic virtue in Trump's America.

[pbrower2a]

It's a profits-first system based upon cost-loading without subsidies or welfare  -- the worst possible system. Run out of money when sick? You die if loved ones don't mortgage away their dreams. There will be people deciding whether to live or die.

It won't be pretty. Vote Republican and vote for economic sadism.

"Medicare for All", 2020 Democratic campaign slogan.

[pbrower2a]

So is this how a successful CEO runs a business? Just get rid of something that "we don't like" and worry about the details later?

Not deal with a replacement program until later, just get rid of the smelly thing first?

Seems to me you deal with the replacement program FIRST, have it ready at the helm, THEN get rid of the smelly thing. That's what rational minds would do, IMO.

If the Republicans had a coherent and improved alternative for Obamacare, then they could have introduced it while Obama was President during an active session, had a debate in both houses of Congress that brings the benefits before the public (including cost containment and obvious reforms in funding and implementation) and compel him to accept or reject it.

Now that the Republicans have a near-totalitarian level of control of the political process (as there is no obvious dissent possible within the Party and it can completely ignore the sensibilties of the Democrats) they probably can abolish it (and probably Medicare as well) and return to the model of maximal pricing for minimal service -- profit maximization. That people die? Tough luck! Such is the Will of God anyway in the most superstitious country in the Industrial West. The only fear that the Republicans have is of being defeated in the next election or two, and that could be preventable.

The right strategy would have been either to bring incremental reforms or to offer a viable substitute. That happens when politics is give-and-take and not simply getting away with what one can when one can. That is how democracy works.
 
We Americans no longer have a functioning democracy. We at best have something like the old Spanish Torno in which the winners of one election go after the losers of the previous election even to the extent of putting the prominent figures of the previous government in prison )Think of Donald Trump egging supporters on with "Lock her up!", undoing the legislative changes of the previous government, pushing a polarizing agenda, and enriching those connected to the winning Party.  With that one gets radical change but no sustained progress. That Torno ended with the accession of Francisco Franco to power in the Spanish Civil War. Franco ensured that there would be no change of government except over his dead body -- and that would take nearly forty years.

Now that I think of it -- Fidel Castro did much the same except to impose as  a godless and anti-capitalist order as Franco's regime was devout and plutocratic, and it will take at least sixty years for a meaningful change of government from the one that Castro established in the wake of the Cuban Revolution.    

[pbrower2a]

So is this how a successful CEO runs a business? Just get rid of something that "we don't like" and worry about the details later?

Not deal with a replacement program until later, just get rid of the smelly thing first?

Seems to me you deal with the replacement program FIRST, have it ready at the helm, THEN get rid of the smelly thing. That's what rational minds would do, IMO.

If the Republicans had a coherent and improved alternative for Obamacare, then they could have introduced it while Obama was President during an active session, had a debate in both houses of Congress that brings the benefits before the public (including cost containment and obvious reforms in funding and implementation) and compel him to accept or reject it.

Now that the Republicans have a near-totalitarian level of control of the political process (as there is no obvious dissent possible within the Party and it can completely ignore the sensibilties of the Democrats) they probably can abolish it (and probably Medicare as well) and return to the model of maximal pricing for minimal service -- profit maximization. That people die? Tough luck! Such is the Will of God anyway in the most superstitious country in the Industrial West. The only fear that the Republicans have is of being defeated in the next election or two, and that could be preventable.

The right strategy would have been either to bring incremental reforms or to offer a viable substitute. That happens when politics is give-and-take and not simply getting away with what one can when one can. That is how democracy works.
 
We Americans no longer have a functioning democracy. ...

That's a very informative post. I wanted to acknowledge what you wrote, I enjoyed reading it. And you make sense about the fact that if they really had a coherent and improved alternative to Obamacare they would have presented it by now. My logical mind just can't comprehend why they want to repeal without offering anything better and cheaper because that's what they say they want. It must be all about ego because that's the only thing that makes any sense, which is actually a bad thing for the rest of us.

When I hear of people talking more about how people don't vote or that there is even their interest being recognized, I then just remember people that regurgitate 1920s economic philosophy forged into some bizarre form of purity folklore or masonic secret that was spoon fed to them by their boss or "mentor". In reality, your interests are no longer your own. Your new interests are you vertical's interests. Isn't that basically Fuedalism? That is, where people are scared into a system based on a dependence-based vertical?

If you really think about it, all this alt-right talk about "snowflakes" is really about them demeaning and belittling the Western idea of Personal Confidence. Combine this with talk about talk about the decline of families and businesses and you see that they are trying to Easternize our society. A lot of these pols took Non-West Political Cultures in their elite colleges and saw the value in getting voters more concerned about whether their bosses could theoretically pay them as more important than whether they actually  have enough money to live.

Vertical union? That's how Italian fascism attempted to organize the political system in the Corporate State. Basically the assembly-line worker had more of a shared interest in the welfare of management and ownership within his industry than with fellow assembly-line workers in another industry, and political representation was to be by industry. But Italy is Western, indeed the source of our modern Western civilization. Fascism is now an anathema in Italy.

Contempt for the West? The Japanese, South Koreans, and Taiwanese are  doing better than us Americans at many things. Chinese-Americans, Vietnamese-Americans, and South Asian Americans are doing well enough in America -- far better than white people in the Mountain and Deep South.

Don't ask about Latin-Americans. Latin America is as Western as Europe or the USA.  But here's a surprise for many of us -- they are often doing better than many white subcultures. They look out for themselves and respect formal education as one of the few reliable means out of poverty.

The problem is the rejection of rationality in America from largely white people. Decline of families? What's the problem? That we have same-sex marriage now? Nobody chooses to be gay, but many families go off in different directions to four different sources of electronic entertainment. Education? We don't respect it enough.