The Future of US Healthcare

[Satchmo Distel]

The utter madness of the current US scene is encapsulated in the fact that the GOP is seriously planning to repeal the coverage of millions of people "at some unspecified future date" without any plan existing to replace it. People will be expected to enter long-term treatment programs for chronic illnesses without a clue as to whether their insurance will still be around to cover it up to the end.

It's incredible that this can be allowed to happen. How will it play out?

[Toby Gymshorts]

The Future of US Healthcare

Lots of poor people will die, and Republicans will shrug their shoulders and blame a lack of ambition, or some such.

[San Bernardhinault]

The Future of US Healthcare

I've got a suspicion that they're going to go for Repeal and Delay, but that the delay will be an ever moving finish line. That they'll set the deadline for replace to 2019 (after the next congressional elections) and have nothing ready, so they'll renew the current situation temporarily, andpush the ball another couple of years, when we'll either have a Democrat president, a Democrat senate, or they'll push it another couple of years. It will be the equivalent of the House passing all their "repeal resolutions" that actually did nothing.

The end result will be not much change apart from a bunch of insurers getting spooked and the costs going up a bit. Which will be bad for consumers, but give the Republicans a good talking point about how bad the ACA is because customers pay more and insurers don't like it. But nobody will actually lose coverage, so the Republicans won't get a massive kicking.

This means that they can say they've done something but the system doesn't actually change.

[Hot Pepsi]

The Future of US Healthcare

That's the best-case scenario.