Tag: ACA

Want to Know More About: Status of Coverage for Pre-Existing Conditions

CNN Reality On Sen. Ted Cruz’s Comment “Everyone Agrees We’re Going To Protect Pre-Existing Conditions:” “Not So Much. This Casual Comment From Senator Cruz Does Not Track With Reality.” CRUZ CLIP: “We can protect pre-existing conditions. You need to understand, everyone agrees we’re going to protect pre-existing conditions.” AVLON: “Not so much. This casual comment from senator Cruz does not track with reality. After all, right now, Texas attorney general is leading a legal charge with 19 other states to overturn Obamacare, including its massively popular protections for people with pre-existing conditions.” [New Day, CNN, 9/24/18; VIDEO]

John Avlon: “Senator Republicans Have Floated A Bill That Would Keep The Protections But There’s One Big Problem. It Doesn’t Limit What Insurance Companies Can Charge To Cover The Pre-Existing Conditions Like Obamacare Does.” AVLON: “Senator Republicans have floated a bill that would keep the protections but there’s one big problem. It doesn’t limit what insurance companies can charge to cover the pre-existing conditions like Obamacare does and critics say that loophole allows conservatives to act like they’re protecting.” [New Day, CNN, 9/24/18; VIDEO]

John Avlon: “Facts Matter. Telling Folks You Support A Popular Provision That Goes To The Heart Of Their Health And Wallet While Also Supporting Legislation That Would Do The Opposite That’s A Special Kind Of Hypocrisy.” AVLON: “In the 11 states that has the most people with pre-existing conditions, Trump crushed Hillary Clinton with an average of 26 points. No wonder trump told a crowd in Las Vegas this.” TRUMP CLIP: “Donald Trump and Republicans will protect patients with pre-existing conditions.”AVLON: “Facts matter. Telling folks you support a popular provision that goes to the heart of their health and wallet while also supporting legislation that would do the opposite that’s a special kind of hypocrisy.” [New Day, CNN, 9/24/18; VIDEO]

Republicans hoped voters would forget they tried to kill Obamacare. They bet wrong.

Credit: Joe Raedle, Getty

Earlier this month, over a year after Republicans tried multiple times to repeal the Affordable Care Act, I asked people in the Twittersphere if their representatives in Congress had voted for repeal and, if so, if they held a town hall to explain their vote and put forward a better vision for health care. Within 24 hours, over 500 people had tweeted back their experiences.

The responses reflected not just people who disagreed with their member of Congress, but people who felt ignored by them. The list of those who chose to vote and disappear in 2017 is long, including many who now find themselves in highly contested races — among them Republicans Barbara Comstock of Virginia, Dana Rohrabacher and Mimi Walters of California, Peter Roskam and Mike Bost of Illinois, Steve Chabot and Steve Stivers of Ohio, and Bruce Poliquin of Maine.

Sensitive to criticism for avoiding their constituents, some lawmakers have taken to holding a “don’t call us, we’ll call you” style of constituent meetings. They often label them town halls, but in reality they are either paid events or telephone calls with limited capacity where only “random” questions are accepted. Few sound satisfied with these interactions. It’s certainly not representative democracy at its finest.

View the complete September 21 article by Andy Slavitt on the Courier-Express website here.

Minnesota DFL Issues Statement on Drop in Insured Minnesotans

ST. PAUL, Minnesota, Sept. 13 — Minnesota’s Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party issued the following statement by Chairman Ken Martin:

“President Trump and Republicans, like Jason Lewis and Erik Paulsen, have continued to sabotage the Affordable Care Act (ACA), driving up premiums and threatening access to care for people across the country. This effort is especially being felt in Minnesota as the number of Minnesotans without health insurance grew by 18,000.

“If Republicans maintain control of Congress, this number is just the tip of the iceberg of Minnesotans without health insurance. Republican leadership said repealing the Affordable Care Act is a top priority. If reelected, Lewis and Paulsen will continue to turn back the clock on health care.

View the complete September 14 post on the InsuranceNewsNet.com website here.

 

Republican Sabotage Leads To Higher Premiums & Fewer Americans Getting The Care They Need

Trump and Republicans are continuing their health care sabotage that has already led to higher premiums and fewer Americans with access to the care they need. This November, Democrats are holding them accountable. Here’s the latest:

Democrats are holding Republicans accountable for trying to take away protections for people with pre-existing conditions.

Washington Post’s Daily 202: “Democrats are pummeling Republican candidates for governor and Senate over a pending lawsuit by 20 GOP-led states that could allow insurance companies to stop covering people with preexisting medical conditions. Underscoring how the politics of Obamacare have changed — even in red states — this issue is being highlighted more than any other right now in Democratic television commercials. Public and private polling validates that it’s an effective line of attack.” Continue reading “Republican Sabotage Leads To Higher Premiums & Fewer Americans Getting The Care They Need”

ICYMI: Number of Minnesotans without health insurance grows by 18,000 | Star Tribune

“Make no mistake, Reps. Erik Paulsen and Jason Lewis have put special interests ahead of their constituents by voting to sabotage affordable healthcare at every turn,”said DCCC Spokeswoman Rachel Irwin. “Paulsen and Lewis can’t run from their constant attacks on affordable healthcare and their votes to gut protections for those with pre-existing conditions like asthma, cancer and diabetes. Every single Minnesota Republican, including Pete Stauber and Jim Hagedorn, who have fully embraced the GOP agenda on raising healthcare costs, will be held accountable this November.”

Number of Minnesotans without health insurance grows by 18,000 | Star Tribune

The number of Minnesotans without health insurance rose last year for the first time since 2013, when the Affordable Care Act took full effect, according to a U.S. Census report that was closely watched because of the continuing battle over the law’s legacy.

Some 243,000 Minnesotans lacked health insurance last year, an increase of 18,000 people from 2016, the bureau said in a report released Wednesday morning.

Still, at just 4.5 percent, Minnesota has one of the lowest uninsured rates in the country. Nationwide, the uninsured rate leveled off at 8.8 percent, or 28.5 million people.

View the complete article by Glenn Howatt on the StarTribune website here.

 

Legal Case to Smash Obamacare Hands the Democrats a Hammer

The following article by Abby Goodnough was posted on the New York Times website September 5, 2018:

Supporters of the Affordable Care Act rally at Burnett Park in Fort Worth, where a federal judge heard arguments on the constitutionality of the law.CreditCreditMax Faulkner/Star-Telegram, AP

FORT WORTH — More than 1,000 miles from the caustic Supreme Court confirmation hearing of Brett M. Kavanaugh, a federal judge in Texas on Wednesday listened to arguments about whether to find part or all of the Affordable Care Act unconstitutional, in a case that may end up before a newly right-leaning set of justices.

The case has become not simply a threat to the landmark legislation. Democrats have sought to make it both a flash point in the battle over whether to confirm Judge Kavanaugh and a crucial prong in their strategy to retake control of the House and Senate in the midterm elections.

It has already made some Republicans jumpy, especially those in tight re-election contests, because the Trump administration explicitly said in a legal filing in June that it agreed with the argument of Texas and 19 other Republican-controlled states that the law’s protections for people with pre-existing medical conditions are not constitutional. The administration is refusing to defend those guarantees. In that sense, although the case threatens one of the Democrats’ proudest achievements, it is also proving to be something of an election-year gift to their party.

View the complete article here.

NEW POLL: 75% Of Americans Support Pre-Existing Condition Protections That Trump & Kavanaugh Would Dismantle

A new poll found that 75 percent of Americans, and 58 percent of Republicans, want to keep ACA protections for people with pre-existing conditions. Despite that, Trump filed a lawsuit to destroy these protections. Oral arguments in this lawsuit begin today, and it could be contested all the way to the Supreme Court. Which brings us to Trump’s Supreme Court nominee…

We know Kavanaugh would rule to dismantle the ACA, because Trump himself promised that his Supreme Court nominees would do that.

“If I win the presidency, my judicial appointments will do the right thing unlike Bush’s appointee John Roberts on ObamaCare.” – Trump, 2015

Kavanaugh previously wrote that a future president could refuse to enforce the ACA, even if it had been upheld by the courts.

New Yorker: “Late last year, a three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit voted, two to one, to uphold President Obama’s health-care reform, known as the Affordable Care Act (aca). Kavanaugh dissented, primarily on the ground that the lawsuit was premature. In a sixty-five-page opinion, Kavanaugh appeared to offer some advice to the Republicans who are challenging Obama in the election this year. ‘Under the Constitution,’ Kavanaugh wrote, ‘the President may decline to enforce a statute that regulates private individuals when the President deems the statute unconstitutional, even if a court has held or would hold the statute constitutional.’”

NOTE:  Rep. Paulsen has voted multiple times to repeal the Affordable Care Act, which protects people from skyrocketing insurance premiums or no insurance at all due to pre-existing conditions.

New Scam Pre-Existing Conditions Bill Provides No Cover to Vote for Judge Brett Kavanaugh

The following article by Colin Seeberger and Jake Faleschini was posted on the Center for American Progress website August 30, 2018:

Credit: Bill Clark, Getty

Next week, while President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Judge Brett Kavanaugh, fields questions at his confirmation hearings, a judge in a North Texas federal district court will hear oral arguments in a landmark health care case on which the next Supreme Court justice could ultimately rule. The case, brought by 20 Republican attorneys general, challenges the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), including the law’s protections for people with pre-existing conditions and limitations on price gouging older Americans. Congressional Republicans’ Tax Cuts and Jobs Act eliminated the ACA’s individual mandate, opening the door for the lawsuit. In June, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that President Trump personally instructed the U.S. Department of Justice not to defend the specific parts of the ACA against this new legal attack—a dramatic departure from precedent. Continue reading “New Scam Pre-Existing Conditions Bill Provides No Cover to Vote for Judge Brett Kavanaugh”

How States Are Combating Federal ACA Sabotage

The following article by Aditya Krishnaswamy, Rhonda Rogombe and Madeline Twomey was posted posted on the Center for American Progress website August 30, 2018:

Protesters gather in front of the office of Rep. Carlos Curbelo (R-FL) to ask him to explain his vote on the Affordable Care Act, Miami, Florida, August 2017. Credit: Joe Raedle, Getty

The Trump administration, with help from its Republican allies in Congress, has worked tirelessly to dismantle the Affordable Care Act (ACA)—former President Barack Obama’s signature health care law. The administration has eliminated the individual mandate penalty; expanded access to short-term junk plans and association health plans; and halted cost-sharing reduction payments. The Center for American Progress estimates that the average marketplace enrollee will pay about $1,000 more for health insurance next year than they should due to the mandate repeal and the short-term plan rule alone.

The Trump administration’s efforts to undermine the ACA have taken many forms. A recent Government Accountability Office (GAO) report highlights the administrations’ efforts to decrease enrollment in 2018. In 2017, for instance, the administration shortened the open enrollment period by 50 percent—from 90 days to 45 days—and cut advertising funds by 90 percent, from $100 million to $10 million. More recently, the administration slashed the budget for enrollment assistance, cutting ACA navigator funding by more than 70 percent, from $36 million to $10 million. A longer enrollment period and greater advertising and navigator funding are critical to expanding access to marketplaces and assisting individuals looking to obtain coverage through the complex health care market. Continue reading “How States Are Combating Federal ACA Sabotage”

GOP eyes another shot at ObamaCare repeal after McCain’s death

The following article by Alexander Bolton was posted on the Hill website August 29, 2018:

Senate Republicans say they would like Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey (R) to appoint a successor to the late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) who, unlike McCain, would support GOP legislation to repeal ObamaCare.

Republican lawmakers say they won’t have time to hold another vote to repeal the law in 2018 but vow to try again next year if they manage to keep their Senate and House majorities.

“If we re-engage in that discussion in some point in the future, it would be nice to have members who enable us to pass it,” Senate Republican Conference Chairman John Thune (S.D.) said when asked about the possibility of ObamaCare repeal legislation coming up for a future vote.

View the complete article here.