Walker lies about ACA plans and smears Obama. Because he is LOSING

I figured earlier this week that the Governor's race really wasn't tied 47-47, like Charles Franklin at Marquette Law School was claiming. And I got confirmation of that on Thursday, when I saw this tweet.

Walker: "No matter what happens in the courts or in the Congress, in Wisconsin we’ll codify that, the exact same language that’s in the Affordable Care Act to make sure everyone living with pre-existing conditions is covered here in the state."

— Patrick Marley (@patrickdmarley) November 1, 2018

COME THE F ON! All Scott Walker has had to do for the last several months is to tell Brad Schimel to drop out of the lawsuit trying to abolish the ACA, call a special session, and push for that bill to be passed. He has not done that, because he has no intention of doing that.

The only reason Walker is throwing this out there is BECAUSE HE IS LOSING, and in particular, losing on the health care issue because people know he has actively worked to sabotage the ACA in Wisconsin from the moment he took office nearly 8 years ago.

Even more amazing is the two-step Scotty tries to pull, if you dig into the article that Marley wrote on this.

"We can protect people with pre-existing conditions without protecting the failure, the failure that is Obamacare," he said. He lauded a $200 million program to lower premiums for individuals who get coverage through the Obamacare marketplaces. The lower costs will start in January.

The coverage of pre-existing conditions IS BECAUSE OBAMACARE MAKES INSURERS DO IT. And that reinsurance plan was ALLOWED UNDER OBAMACARE, and it is an example of government subsidizing insurers so that they won't lower premiums. Other than who gets the money, how is that different than the ACA giving tax credits to people who buy health care on the individual market?

In fact, if there's a "failure of the ACA, it's because it trusted insurance companies and private organizations to offer services at a reasonable price, and in some instances, that didn't happen. Likely because there was no strong regulation over premium prices or a public option to compete alongside of these profit-driven insurance companies. However, Walker cynically ignored that fact to smear the president who signed the Affordable Care Act into law.

He criticized former President Barack Obama, who during a speech last week in Milwaukee charged Walker and other Republicans were lying about their record on health care.

He recalled that in 2013 Politifact gave it's "Lie of the Year" to Obama for saying, "If you like your health care, you can keep it."

"That was the lie of the year," Walker said. "So, I guess if you're going to lie about health care and pre-existing conditions you might as well bring in the biggest liar in the world."

Uhh, the overwhelming majority of us did keep our health care, and at similar if not lower prices. As did you, as a public employee. And the fact that lifetime grifter Scott "It's Not My Fault" Walker is questioning anyone else's honesty is beyond rich.

It also shows Walker's willful ignorance of how health care actually works in the real world, as was illustrated in a recent column from UW professors William Holahan and Charles Kroncke titled "Why won't free market insure those with pre-existing conditions?"

Is there a simple way, without rancorous partisan rhetoric, to explain to voters why the Republican "free-market solutions" will not work? Fortunately, there is. Unregulated health insurance firms (i.e., health insurers operating in a “free market") charge "experience-rated" premiums; just as high-risk drivers pay more for their car insurance, those with pre-existing health conditions pay more for their health insurance policies.

Experience rating is the natural result of market forces. The competitive market gives the insurer no choice. If an insurer decided to charge all policyholders a "community rate," (i.e., a common rate that is less than the average cost of covering high-risk policyholders but more than the average cost of low-risk policyholders), competing firms would then find it profitable to offer a rate lower than the community rate in order to lure the less-risky people away from the firm that charged the community rate. If society demands affordable premiums for those with pre-existing conditions, it can only come about through regulation, not unregulated "free markets."...

Vice President Mike Pence was in Wisconsin recently to stump for Gov. Walker's re-election and to tout a patient-centered alternative that allows insurance companies to sell lower-cost, short-term policies that are not guaranteed renewable, have no requirement for an essential-benefits package, and although he claimed otherwise, have no requirement to cover those with pre-existing conditions.

One does not have to be hyperpartisan to recognize that these "free market solutions" won't work. Those who understand how markets work know that they cannot provide universal health insurance unless guided by regulation to do so. An unregulated insurance market will treat sick people with pre-existing conditions with the same disdain as they do drunk drivers. Markets do not have empathy; humans must supply that — for the market should serve the people, not vice versa.

But that's not what Scott Walker or other GOP hacks want to admit. And they don't want to mention how their crocodile tears over covering pre-existing conditions 1. Prove that there are a lot of good things in the ACA that are an improvement over what we had; and 2. Won't be affordable for the typical person that needs treatment for that pre-existing condition, because GOPs won't do anything to limit premiums for their insurance company donors, meaning that people either go broke, or they go without insurance and die.

Then again, Scott Walker hasn't had to deal with getting his own health care since he was 25 years old, because he and his family has been covered by the State of Wisconsin and/or Milwaukee County. Sounds like it's time for Scotty and the Walkers to find out what it's like out there in the real world, and see if he talks so tough when he has to get a real job and search for insurance like so many others do.