Mike Rounds isn't going to repeal the Affordable Care Act. He's an insurance salesman. He wants the ACA to stick around.
So do his buddies in the insurance business. In New Hampshire, where only Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield offered policies in the first year of the state's ACA exchange, four more insurers now want in. The same is happening in other states:
In every state that's shared details thusfar, it appears there will be more choices in Obamacare, year 2:
- Michigan's exchange is going from 13 participating companies in 2013 to 18 this fall.
- At least one additional carrier has filed to sell plans through Kentucky's exchange.
- Several more insurers may join the plans participating in Virginia, Washington, and Indiana's exchanges.
- United HealthCare may jump into Georgia's market.
And the surge in carriers means that there will be many more actual options at the point of purchase, too. Peter Frost at the Chicago Tribune notes the number of companies competing on the Illinois exchange next year will inch up from six to eight—but the number of available policies will almost triple, from 165 to 504 [Dan Diamond, "In Every State So Far, More Insurers Are Asking to Participate in Obamacare," The Advisory Board Company: Daily Briefing Blog, 2014.06.12].
More insurance companies are jumping onto the Affordable Care Act bandwagon. One of the last things they want is for Republicans to rip up the settling status quo and discombobulate their financial analyses.
Insurance man Mike Rounds hears his market speaking. He'll keep telling easily scared conservative voters that he'll repeal the Affordable Care Act. But he'll never do it. His business pals would beat him up if he did.
As always, follow the money. And, since the insurance companies were in the ACA planning up to their necks, no, they don't want the ACA repealed. It will stay. Now if we could just change it to Medicare for all!
Yes, Medicare for everyone including Rounds to go with his South Dakota retirement benefit of nearly $20,000 a year!
My guess is that Rounds will continue his anti-ACA speech even though he knows the ACA will not be repealed. What he will do is to say when the ACA is not repealed, "I tried, but......"
You might be right JeniW but what I want from Rounds is to explain in detail his plan.
He says a market-based approach but let's here specifics.
The analysis is correct. Obamacare is Crony Capitalism to the extreme. Only true conservatives are truly against it. It is the Democratic Neo-Marxists and the GOP Establishment Neo-Fascists that are for it.
Self-made men don't need that Obamacare anyway.
Owen, I agree.
Rounds, and most other anti-ACA candidates and/or elected official do not have their own plan, they just echo someone else's plan. They are letting someone else do the work for them.
The free market that we Pubs so adore is telling us that ACA is here to stay. Here's my blog post on it a few weeks ago, with a notation that SD's Wellmark is part of the stampede: http://theconstantcommoner.blogspot.com/2014/05/memo-to-mike-rounds-and-other-aca.html
If Steve Sibson and his neo-Marxist tea party don't like Obamacare, than Obamacare must be a good thing for the people and the government.
Roger, can you explain "neo-Marxist tea party"?
Did Steve Sibson say something of importance or just more stringing together more bumper sticker tea party slogans?
Roger, if understanding that you, and your fellow Neo-Marxist leftists, have something in common with the Neo-Fascist GOP Establishment Crony Capitalists is important, then I said something important.
Quit stroking yourself Sibson, you didn't say anything of importance.
Now do this, when you think about American capitalism, take any given business or industry you choose, remove American taxpayer (socialism) dollars from the equation and tell me how business is not propped up by government socialism.
Free markets are a great talking game, but to borrow a phrase from racist Wiken, they are mythology. It won't work to tell me what should be, it is what it is and nobody of either party that are beneficiaries of public money want it changed
"nobody of either party that are beneficiaries of public money want it changed"
That is my point. The Neo-Marxist Democrats are on the same page with Neo-Fascist Republicans. The Constitutional Republic has been destroyed. So why all the fighting between Dems and GOPers?
Sibson,
It is increasingly more difficult to have a conversation with you when nearly every sentence you utter has to include neo-Marxism or other tea party meme in it. Usually the content of your message is lost with the over use and abuse
of your rhetoric.
Sorry Roger, just trying to detail political philosophies. I thought we actually were coming very close to agreeing that both political parties believe in bigger government and some form of collectivism. I wonder what the arguments are really about when it comes to Obamacare. The Neo-Marxist get to give free money to the working class, and the Neo-Fascist get to make money supplying the services that the free money pays for. You all ought to be very happy and slapping each other on the backs. It does explain why both parties hate those they rhetorically call "the tea party".
Steve,
You did it again. Why do you repeatedly have to restate your political philosophy? I'm starting to believe you just enjoy saying neo-marxism or neo-facism becauses it makes you sound intelligent to someone.
And you're correct, we are very close to coming together on this point, but until you clear your head of cheap rhetoric, it probably won't happen.
Steve, would your description of the federal government be on the same level with our state and local government?
I really think Steve is living in the wrong century. The 17 or 1800s would have been more suitable for him. None of that "neo marxist" healthcare and public education ruinin' the country. A man could live quietly amidst the mountains with his bible and guns not really worryin' about taxes or what not.
I agree Jenny, about the wrong century. Here is where Mr. Sibson always goes Neo-Marxism. The reason he goes there is because it means absolutely nothing as a whole because it is so faceted. Here is what is said about the word: "Neo-Marxism is a loose term for various twentieth-century approaches that amend or extend Marxism and Marxist theory, usually by incorporating elements from other intellectual traditions, such as: critical theory, psychoanalysis or Existentialism" so it is a cookie cutter approach to theories, nothing defined. Perfect for someone who just likes to toss crap against the wall and hope some of it sticks. Clearly someone passed him that word and he loves it to pieces, doesn't have a clue of what it stands for, but likes the way it rolls off his tongue.