GOP learns health care is, indeed, complex: #tellusatoday

Letter to the editor:

President Trump is starting to get a great lesson on the difference between campaigning and actually governing.

While campaigning you can hurl accusations like “Obamacare is a disaster” and “it must be repealed and replaced immediately.” When you win, as Trump did, you now have to deliver, and there is the rub. Delivering a health care product that is better, cheaper and still fair is an incredibly difficult task.

The far right of the president’s own party says the initial plan is simply “Obamacare lite.” The left says it will cause millions to lose their health care coverage. Meanwhile, the Congressional Budget Office is expected to project a very high price tag that undermines the promise of better and more affordable insurance.

You can readily question the political savvy of the Trump team. While its political capital was high, it could have chosen to start with the more popular and less controversial tax and regulatory reform. Then use these victories and resultant goodwill as a springboard to launch into health care reform. It’s too soon to dub this foray Trump’s Waterloo moment, but it clearly is a challenge to his young presidency.

Stay tuned to see how Trumpcare unfolds!

Ken Derow; Swarthmore, Pa.

Facebook comments are edited for clarity and grammar:

Why is it that people cannot accept that a public option fixes most of this? I do welcome the Republicans’ plan, but it doesn’t solve the specific issues it needs to address to ensure coverage for all.

— William Worsham

Just like with Obamacare, Congress is focused on the wrong problem: Who pays, instead of bringing down the total cost of the system. We need to bring competition to the health care system and increase supply faster than demand. That is the only way to bring down costs.

First, everyone from insurers to government employees to private individuals should have to pay the same rate. That rate should be posted, for everyone to see and encourage competition.

Second, you need to increase quality care faster than the cost of care, the opposite of what these expansions do. That will allow competition to drive these costs down. We need to get rid of all the bureaucratic hurdles.

Finally, if you are getting government assistance, you should be doing everything you can to keep the costs down. There should be a requirement to be fit — medical conditions permitting.

— Mathew Andresen

Policing the USA

Republicans rename Obamacare, call it a day: #tellusatoday

Our followers shared their thoughts on the American Health Care Act. Tweets are edited for clarity and grammar:

Let’s pass it so we can find out what’s in it. #DemcratsPlaybook

— @tngarrett

Comparisons between the Affordble Care Act and the AHCA are truly odious. Obamacare was too disastrous to ever fully implement, while Trumpcare is only partly formulated.

— @billbradbrooke

I don’t know how House Speaker Paul Ryan sleeps at night knowing the lower class is left in the cold.

— @CathyScero

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