…as it should have been from the very beginning. But nothing has really changed: even the White House acknowledges that the Obamacare law remains in place pending appeal. Which, of course, it will be, likely destined for a final dust-up at the Supreme Court.

Still, it would appear that, one way or the other, the “Affordable Care Act” (which neither was affordable or had anything to do with the quality of care), as originally designed, is on its last legs. Hence, it will be up to Democrats to lead with a viable replacement solution in the next Congress – something the GOP never had the courage to do. So good luck with that, Democrats.

This commenter at The Conservative Treehouse has it about right, I think:

The ruling is sound. SCOTUS determined that odimwitcare was only legal IF it was a tax, and the tax reform bill prohibited the individual mandate as a tax. No tax, no odimwitcare, and that sends the last whisper of obo the clown’s ‘legacy’ slithering into the cesspool of oblivion…LOL

From a political perspective, this will force Congress to come together on a bipartisan healthcare bill next year or be replaced in 2020 by their angry constituents. Time for Congress to get the lead out and start working.

One thing that can be done in a bipartisan manner is to address the scam of ‘balance billing’ (known as ‘surprise billing’) by providing a hold harmless clause for patients that select in network facilities and offices from their plans and prohibiting service providers from charging out of network costs to patients for services rendered on issues they have no knowledge of or control over. This is already done for Medicaid patients, and it’s time to expand it to everyone.

A bill was started in Tennessee in 2018, a good bill that never received a vote. So I am working on it for 2019 in Tennessee. Time to take it nationally. There is no cost to taxpayers, creates transparency in billing, reduces the complexity of the billing process, and holds physicians, service providers, hospitals and insurance companies to the terms of the insurance policies sold to and paid for by the patients as long as they select in network offices and hospitals.

The Tennessee bill can be found here, and I think it’s a great start. Ultimately, the solution (at least on the surface) appears to be simple: encourage insurance plans that cross state lines and build bigger pools of healthier and younger people to pay for plans that cover truly catastrophic situations, encourage doctors and hospitals to post their costs so that folks are, in turn, encouraged to pay for routine visits and procedures out of their own pockets, thus eliminating the excessive costs charged by providers simply because they know the insurers will cover it and thereby reduce the overall cost of basic healthcare. That will, in turn, make room for insurers to cover folks with preexisting conditions and the elderly, whose healthcare costs skyrocket in the last years of their lives.

It would also be interesting to see the states serve as laboratories for controlling healthcare costs. In a country as large and diverse as the USA is, one-size-fits-all healthcare isn’t just impractical, it’s overly cost-prohibitive as well. Regardless of what geniuses like Steph Curry think, we’ve put a man on the moon; surely, we can come up with healthcare solutions that provide truly affordable healthcare to those who truly need it while reducing the federal government’s boot on everyone’s neck solely to line the pockets of, and protect the interests of dick-headed, bow-tied bum-kissing bureaucrats, politicians, and special-interest groups.