The following article by Max Greenwood was posted on the Hill website September 23, 2017:
The following article by David Weigel was posted on the Washington Post website September 21, 2017:
The chief sponsors of the GOP’s 11th-hour effort to curtail the Affordable Care Act will debate two of their Senate opponents, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), on Monday night — an arrangement that surprised some of Sanders’s Democratic colleagues, who learned about the debate when host network CNN blasted out a news release.
According to Sanders spokesman Josh Miller-Lewis, CNN came to the senator with the idea earlier in the week, and Sanders signed on without hesitation. Continue reading “Sanders and Klobuchar book CNN debate with Cassidy and Graham”
The following article by Glenn Howatt and Jennifer Brooks was posted on the StarTribune website September 22, 2017:
WASHINGTON – Minnesota stands to lose billions of dollars in federal funding if Senate Republicans are successful next week in their latest bid to dismantle the Affordable Care Act.
Supporters of the so-called Graham-Cassidy bill say it returns control of health care policy to the states. But many Minnesota health officials counter that it endangers care of seniors and people with disabilities and would lead to even more costly premiums in the individual market.
“People won’t be able to afford to get coverage and at the end of the day more people will go without the medical care that they need,” said Jim Schowalter, CEO of the Minnesota Council of Health Plans. “This takes us back several steps.”
Like other states, Minnesota under the proposal would get a federal health care block grant, with flexibility in how to spend it. But an analysis by the Washington-based health care consulting firm Avalere Health found that Minnesota would lose $8 billion over the next decade compared to what it would receive under the Affordable Care Act.
The federal mandate to have health insurance would go away, along with the system of subsidies and tax credits designed to make premiums more affordable. The bill would also end the expansion of the Medicaid program to those who are slightly above the poverty level, and like other Republican proposals, federal Medicaid dollars to states will be capped.
That could result in a $37 billion loss to Minnesota in federal Medicaid funding by 2030, according to an analysis by the Minnesota Department of Human Services. MinnesotaCare would see its federal funding stream eliminated entirely. The program, which serves 92,000 working poor, is mostly paid for with federal dollars.
“If the repeal of ACA passes, it’s going to just be a nightmare,” Gov. Mark Dayton told reporters this week.
“The uncertainty for states and for the people of Minnesota is going to be really destructive.”
By comparison, Wisconsin would gain $3 billion under its block grant because the bill funnels federal dollars away from states that accepted aid during the Obama administration to those that did not.
“There’s a significant transfer of funds from blue states to red states,” said Andy Slavitt, a Minnesotan who served as acting administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services for the last two years of the Obama administration. The bill, he said, creates “losers and bigger losers.”
National and state groups representing hospitals, nursing homes, doctors and some insurance companies have opposed the bill.
“Not much has improved since the last failed attempt by the U.S. Senate to pass an ACA repeal and replace bill,” said Kari Thurlow, senior vice president of advocacy for LeadingAge Minnesota, a long-term care industry group.
“It will hurt the most vulnerable and in many cases jeopardize people’s ability to stay in their homes as they age,” said Will Phillips, state director for AARP Minnesota.
The elderly and people with disabilities make up about 20 percent of the 1.1 million people in Minnesota’s Medicaid program but account for nearly 60 percent of spending.
Minnesota currently provides benefits to people with disabilities that are not required by federal law, making them vulnerable to cuts as federal funding decreases over time, said Mike Gude, communications director for the Arc Minnesota, a disability rights group in St. Paul.
“These programs provide supports that help people with disabilities get and keep jobs in the community and helps them live in their own place in the community,” he said. “All of those kinds of services would be threatened.”
“All of sudden to undo all that and redo to establish new programs and new approaches,” said Lynn Blewett, a public health professor at the University of Minnesota. “I just can’t imagine what will happen.”
Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, a physician and a lead sponsor of the bill, dismissed criticism, saying it comes from “those who wish to preserve Obamacare, and they are doing everything they can to discredit the alternative.”
“More people will have coverage, and we protect those with pre-existing conditions,” Cassidy told CNN.
The bill does require that “adequate and affordable” coverage be available for those with pre-existing conditions, but since the terms aren’t defined in the bill, critics fear insurers could jack up the price of those plans beyond most people’s ability to pay. States could also obtain waivers that would erase some protections.
The bill’s sponsors are scrambling to lock in the 50 votes they need to pass it before a Sept. 30 procedural deadline.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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The following article by Niels Lesniewski was posted on the Roll Call website September 22, 2017:
Arizona Sen. John McCain said Friday that given the truncated timeline, he cannot vote for the health care repeal proposal floated by fellow Republican Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana next week.
“I cannot in good conscience vote for the Graham-Cassidy proposal. I believe we could do better working together, Republicans and Democrats, and have not yet really tried. Nor could I support it without knowing how much it will cost, how it will affect insurance premiums, and how many people will be helped or hurt by it,” McCain said. “Without a full [Congressional Budget Office] score, which won’t be available by the end of the month, we won’t have reliable answers to any of those questions.” Continue reading “McCain a ‘No’ on Latest Senate Health Care Bill”
The following article by Emily Yahr was posted on the Washington Post website September 21, 2017:
Late-night host Jimmy Kimmel attacked the Cassidy-Graham health-care plan on Sept. 19 and 20, and hit back at Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) for failing his own standard, “the Kimmel test.” (Jenny Starrs/The Washington Post)
“I had an interesting day today,” Jimmy Kimmel said at the top of his late-night show Wednesday, which was quite the understatement. Kimmel saw his monologue about health care go viral after he tore into Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) on Tuesday night for the “horrible bill” that he proposed with Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) as the Senate tries to repeal Obamacare.
Kimmel took particular issue with Cassidy because the Louisiana senator appeared on his show in May and said he would oppose a health-care bill in which people with preexisting conditions were not protected, or had an annual or lifetime cap for insurance companies. Cassidy nicknamed some of these guidelines the “Jimmy Kimmel test,” as it was right after Kimmel had publicly discussed his newborn son’s harrowing open heart surgery, and pleaded with officials to consider the astronomical cost of medical care for families who can’t afford it. Continue reading “Jimmy Kimmel doubles down, slams Sen. Bill Cassidy, Trump and ‘Fox & Friends’ over health-care bill”
The following article by Robert Pear was posted on the New York Times website September 20, 2017:
WASHINGTON — The health insurance industry, after cautiously watching Republican health care efforts for months, came out forcefully on Wednesday against the Senate’s latest bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act, suggesting that its state-by-state block grants could create health care chaos in the short term and a Balkanized, uncertain insurance market.
In the face of the industry opposition, Senate Republican leaders nevertheless said they would push for a showdown vote next week on the legislation, drafted by Senators Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana.
That puts Republican senators in a squeeze, especially those whose states would lose money under a complicated formula in the bill. Generally, it would shift federal funds away from states that have been successful in expanding coverage to states where Republican leaders refused to expand Medicaid or encourage enrollment. Continue reading “Insurers Come Out Swinging Against New Republican Health Care Bill”
The following article by Emily Gee was posted on the Center for American Progress website September 20, 2017:
Senate Republicans are attempting to rally support for one last try at repealing major portions of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The latest incarnation of ACA repeal is a billchampioned by Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Bill Cassidy (R-LA), Dean Heller (R-NV), and Ron Johnson (R-WI). Like the ACA repeal bills considered by the House and Senate earlier this year, Graham-Cassidy would slash the ACA programs that expanded health coverage to millions, weaken consumer protections for people with pre-existing conditions, as well as limit federal support for Medicaid coverage for low-income adults and children, the elderly, and the disabled.
Only 10 days remain for Senate Republicans to pass a bill with only 51 votes via the budget reconciliation process. Rushing Graham-Cassidy through at breakneck speed, Senate leadership is violating customary legislative procedure. Next week, the Finance Committee will hold the Senate’s sole hearing for a bill that would spend a trillion dollars and threaten coverage for millions of Americans. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) said it will not have sufficient time to produce a comprehensive score of the bill that would show its impacts on coverage and premiums. Continue reading “Coverage Losses by State Under the Graham-Cassidy Bill to Repeal the ACA”
The following article by Simon Haeder was posted on the Conversation website September 19, 2017:
At the end of July, the nation held its collective breath as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) looked poised to achieve his most formidable parliamentary accomplishment: the repeal and replacement of the Affordable Care Act.
But Republican hopes were dashed by one of their own, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who cast the deciding vote that appeared to decisively derail the multi-year effort.
McCain called to return to “regular order,” to work through committees, to bring in and listen to experts, to be open and transparent, and perhaps most importantly, to at least listen to both parties. Continue reading “How the latest effort to repeal Obamacare would affect millions”
The following article by John T. Bennett and Niels Lesniewski was posted on the Roll Call website July 28, 2017:
Amid pleas from Republicans and Democrats for the parties to begin work on a bipartisan health care bill, President Donald Trump and White House officials on Friday doubled down on his call to put off any action until Barack Obama’s 2010 law fails.
Ailing Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain shocked senators from both parties early Friday morning when he voted against a GOP leadership-crafted measure that amounted only to a partial repeal of the Affordable Care Act. Back in Washington after a brain tumor diagnosis, McCain made clear his vote was a shove for the entire Senate to get back to “regular order” — meaning hearings and floor debate — on health care and every other issue.
Following McCain’s dramatic vote on the Senate floor, several senators reported that Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Chairman Lamar Alexander of Tennessee is planning for just that. And Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., said he saw Alexander and the committee’s ranking Democrat, Patty Murray of Washington, already talking in the wee hours of Friday morning. Continue reading “White House Pushes ‘Implode’ Plan Amid Talk of Bipartisan Health Bill”
The following article by Mike DeBonis and Amber Phillips was posted on the Washington Pot website July 29, 2017:
The Republican Party’s seven-year quest to undo the Affordable Care Act culminated Friday in a humiliating failure to pass an unpopular bill, sparking questions about how steep the costs will be for its congressional majorities.
While lawmakers have not completely abandoned the effort, they are now confronting the consequences of their flop. Not only has it left the GOP in a precarious position heading into next year’s midterm elections, but it also has placed enormous pressure on the party to pass an ambitious and complex overhaul of federal taxes. Continue reading “PowerPost Republicans’ failure to ‘repeal and replace’ Obamacare may cost them at the ballot box”
