Washington is a Coastal State (for some of you on the East Coast. Actually probably not for anyone in the Gulch). Solution: Make Eastern Washington a new state, the State of Liberty. I know exactly how the politics will split, we will be opposite the west. The City of Spokane will be our only problem as it's seems to be going liberal, but at least the outlying areas still have more population. At least we might get some representation that actually represents us for a change.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/n...

Yes, thanks freedomforall. The notion was nagging me so when I got home I did a quick search and found I must have been thinking of something else, like the militia act of 1903, and confused it with something Constitutional. I know the states militias got more "federalized" over time and somehow thought it was a post Civil War amendment. As you point out: It wasn't. Hey, don't get old - sometimes those neurons just don't fire the way they should!

There are two programs here in Oklahoma that ought to be held up as a model for reducing the cost of health care. In Tulsa there's a doctors' cooperative that offers complete care for $50/month for adults and $10/month for children. They've also used their collective horsepower to provide low cost catastrophic insurance for those who want it, and get rock bottom prices for prescriptions. The other program, in Oklahoma City, is the Surgery Center, which posts the price of all the surgeries online. They accept only direct payment or corporate/religious/associate self funded programs, not dealing with insurance companies or the government. This program has put pressure on the local hospitals to lower the prices they charge. The best thing the government could do is to incentivize these type of operations and step back.

Some people do abuse themselves, but others just have the luck of the draw, with genetic disorders, weak immune systems, and exposure to harmful working environments. How to deal fairly with the ill and elderly without telling them to expect bankruptcy as a natural course of events is a challenge. There are doctors and nurses who contribute time to free clinics, and religious organizations like the Salvation Army that help people with addiction and mental disorders, but their capacity is limited. The trick is to prevent the government-insurers cabal from leveraging taxpayer empathy to extort more money supposedly on behalf of the ill and elderly.

Repeal obamacare. Fund Health Savings Accounts with the money that was going to obamacare. Pay cash for medical services and drugs. Buy a catastrophic policy with the HSA money. In time you should make a profit on your Health Savings Account since you are eliminating the overhead of the insurance company. The doctor also doesn't have the hassle of getting paid by the insurance company and can charge less since he/she now has a cash business. it is simple but there is no graft in it so the Thieves in DC won't even look at it.

Well and accurately stated.

No such amendment exists. All federal laws restricting gun ownership are unconstitutional.

You always used to be able to purchase catastrophic policies - until the communist light version of healthcare made that freedom of choice illegal. Its quite simple, the free market will provide the best policy at the best cost, as long as govt. stays the hell out of it. "pre-existing conditions will be priced at a higher level, same as auto insurance and bank loan interest rates, if you have issues you pay more. Cant pay? there are a myriad of govt. and community programs that will care for you - there ALWAYS has been. For those that just won`t pay for their problems...they used to be called paupers cemeteries. Health care control and gun control have one base governmental desire.

" The general welfare clause is hogwash." Agreed, freedomforall, but it seems that semantic genie is now out of the bottle and the great welfare state is upon us, supported by the now disastrous (IMHO) 16th amendment. Now the pressure is on the 2nd amendment by those pushing to re-interpret "the people's right to keep and bear arms" to actually refer to the States formation of the militia and not an individual right at all. If "they" succeed, then (regardless of the wording), that portion of the 2nd amendment will be interpreted to mean "the state's right to keep and bear arms". THEN, once that's accomplished, the "We the people" in the preamble can be re-interpreted to mean "We of the state" and there's no doubt of the havoc that will cause. [Side note: Don't have the Constitution in front of me and too lazy to search it, but I believe after the Civil War there is an amendment to end the State militias and create the National Guard, making the militia part of the 2nd amendment a moot point in any case. - I could be wrong on that as I sit here waiting for an oil change on my vehicle.]

I really liked this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFoXy...

It's about what happened BEFORE the AMA took over...

While I agree that this particular interview was more a defense of the Caucus, I noted several things:
1. He refused to blame anyone. What he pointed out repeatedly was that the bill was unpopular and didn't do what he (and many others of the Caucus) had been elected to do: repeal Obamacare.
2. That he was still open to working with people on a patient-centered bill. Though the specifics weren't mentioned in this interview, I have heard other Freedom Caucus members as well as Jordan offer up specifics in line with what you mention above. That he was not asked about specific alternatives in this interview does not mean they were not discussed, however.
3. Yes, he did blame the process. He blamed the lack of debate, the refusal to accept amendments, the lack of testimony, and the rush all as contributing factors.

This is not to take away from your proposals, only to rebut the first point you attempted to make: that the Freedom Caucus was not promoting fundamental reform. Their first priority is repeal - which must happen before anything else is considered.

I watched the interview, it was all about process rather than substance and did not address any of the proposals I made above.

It would be even nicer if the SCOTUS would decide to restrict their own powers. It was never intended for the SCOTUS to do the job that they claim to have. The Hamiltonian statists will grab for every power they can regardless of the constitution. The Bill of Rights was written to establish that the peoples' rights exist before the government and unless specifically and overtly written the power belongs to the states and the people, no broad federal power exists anywhere in the constitution except when the power is detailed, while the 9th and 10th amendments make it clear that no powers may be assumed by the federal government unless there are amendments passed and approved by the people. The general welfare clause is hogwash.

The problem is through semantic slippage, deliberate or otherwise, too many are of the belief "promote" and "provide" are the same thing, which is why, to avoid that dilemma, it is important to have SCOTUS judges who are of the mind that the Constitution and its' amendments always mean what they were meant to mean on their day of ratification.

all taxation is theft...zero the tax rate for everyone...corporations too...you are responsible for yourself and those you choose...period

Prior to Obamacare when the insurance business was run mostly by insurance companies, weren't we always bragging about having the best health care system in the world? Wasn't government run healthcare regarded by most sane persons as fantasy stupidity and proving it by illustrating the examples of European countries? So along comes Obama with Democrat majority and we suddenly have the ACA alias Obamacare and as in other places it is a mess, and an impossibility to do what it's supposed to do. Now the "sane" Repubs have tasked themselves to cure the foolishness by substituting their own foolishness. Listen Up Insanitors and congressnuts! The Is No Way You Can Satisfy Everyone with government run or mandated health care. Not only that, it's very likely that you probably, in the long run, cannot satisfy ANYONE with with a government run or mandated health plan. There are too many variable and too much scientific progress to make it profitable or http://viable.No one will ever or can ever make it work. Why has anyone on the right -- or for that matter anyone at all, blandly accept the premise that there is such a thing as a workable solution? Socialized medicine (let's face it, that's what we're talking about) has no place in even a semi free country with a mixed economy (which is what we are) let alone moving toward a truly capitalistic society.

I am surprised that 'fixing' socialism continues to be debated here. There is no fix. If the people are enslaved they are enslaved, you can't enslave someone a little bit. Although my free thinking friends wife suggested that just a little socialism is good. Your health issue is not mine! My health issue is not yours. There is not limit that needs to be set where the government steps into the lives of others and does something. Any limit that is attempted to be set upon it will always fail, once it has permission to interfere with your life it will then it is a matter of gradation that will continue until it is complete. Quit trying to control the free market, let it be free and the best and cheapest methods will be found. Any other attempt will increase costs and decrease availability.

Just get government out of healthcare altogether. I am much more confident the market can solve the issue.

Interesting, I've always seen taxes as the same way - enslaving the working/successful to redistribute wealth to the old, lazy, or sick. (More lazy than sick these days).

Actually, the Constitution does have the "Promote the General Welfare Clause" - although I read that as being "encouraging" or "facilitating", but we do need a basic safety net. Unfortunately, the libs lift the height of the safety net every election to get a few more votes until now we basically have more people "in the cart" than are "pulling the cart".

It already exists... it's called Medicaid. Presumably, if you are catastrophically ill, you wouldn't be able to work and would generally run out of money and qualify.

This is all about snobby sick liberals that want a private insurance card (for cheap) rather than have to go to the public clinics that take Medicaid. It's the same as the "EBT Cards" for food stamps that have a VISA symbol to kind of look like the beneficiary is actually paying for their groceries, until you are stuck in line watching the clerk fill out the miles of paperwork on every item they are buying. IMHO, that's the real reason Amazon is going to dominate groceries now... people are sick of watching the baby-mommas picking up 6 bags of Cheetos and a 12-pack of Mountain Dew from the convenience store with a 600% markup using other people's tax dollars.

Even if you are old and in a care home, after self-paying in private care for 30 months, Medicaid will pick up the cost, regardless of the person's assets - although their income (retirement/disability/investment) needs to be contributed.

Call it something else if we want, but the mechanism is already there, and always has been there. This is just whining and crying.

I have a brother-in-law that I have been friends with for 20 years that is dying of liver & esophageal cancer at 40 years old. Love the guy, and my heart goes out to him, but he's on Medicare and Permanent Social Security + Disability and got an early (full) retirement from his construction union. He's doing fine, he has a catastrophic illness and California State Disability Income (SDI) kicked-in on day-one when he was diagnosed and couldn't work to be on chemo, and the case worker at the hospital worked his file through Social Security and Medicare's "Compassionate Claims" process - he's going to die anyway, the reality is, he's eligible for a crummy couple of years of retirement while trying to stay alive a little longer.

These programs have always been there, but does take a little bit of reading & writing ability and some basic understanding of government to navigate and get a claim approved.

We don't need to fix "stupid" by having 20 different programs that do the same thing.

Amen to that!

The whole purpose of insurance pools is to spread the risk to make the premiums as low as possible. Those who are sick can get treated. Those who are not sick (right now) are covered.
As we age, we all need more medical treatment. Seniors already pay higher premiums. If we are all to pay for insurance based purely on our own healthcare needs, there would be no need for insurance at all.
The bottom line is that spreading the risk and cost over the whole pool makes the cost of health insurance less expensive for everyone.

make health insurance illegal. the market would soon become competitive. costs would fall. end of story.

So true.

This was why Rand said that the philosophical basis for Western civilization's altruism must be removed.