Tag: GOP wealthcare

Mike Pence just settled it: Republicans’ Obamacare repeal bill can’t guarantee protections for preexisting conditions

The following article by Amber Phillips was posted on the Washington Post website September 21, 2017:

‪Credit:  Jonathan Ernst/Reuters

This post has been updated to include that Pence also said this: “But this legislation, Graham-Cassidy, as its authors have said, contains all the same protections for preexisting conditions as the President indicated.”

A major public flash point in Republicans’ efforts to repeal Obamacare is whether it will protect people with preexisting conditions. Continue reading “Mike Pence just settled it: Republicans’ Obamacare repeal bill can’t guarantee protections for preexisting conditions”

Sanders and Klobuchar book CNN debate with Cassidy and Graham

The following article by David Weigel was posted on the Washington Post website September 21, 2017:

U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) speaks as Sen. Dean Heller (R-Nev.) and Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) listen. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

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”

Latest health care repeal bill in Senate could cost Minnesota billions

The following article by Glenn Howatt and Jennifer Brooks was posted on the StarTribune website September 22, 2017:

Latest GOP bill would defund MinnesotaCare and shift our federal aid to other states.

Dr. Michael Kamp examines a patient Thursday at Open Cities Medical Center. The low-income clinic in St. Paul would face major funding losses under the Graham-Cassidy health care proposal. Credit: Leila Navidi, STAR TRIBUNE

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.

Nearly 60 percent of all nursing home care in Minnesota is paid for by Medicaid, which also provides funds to help people live independently at home or in assisted care facilities. The Medicaid spending caps proposed by the bill would force the state to cut benefits and reduce provider reimbursement rates, she said.

“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.”

In addition to Medicaid cuts, Minnesota would have about two years to change health policy to conform with the new law, if enacted, compared to the seven years it has taken to implement Obamacare.

“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.

“Over the next 10 years, 32 million people will lose coverage,” Slavitt said. “Premiums are likely to shoot up in the near term — 20 percent in the first year, and the consumer protections that people really value, like: protection against being discriminated against for having a pre-existing condition, having a lifetime cap on your policy, all those are gone.”

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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McCain a ‘No’ on Latest Senate Health Care Bill

The following article by Niels Lesniewski was posted on the Roll Call website September 22, 2017:

Arizona Republican says there is not enough time for debate

Arizona Sen. John McCain talks with reporters in the basement of the Capitol on Tuesday. (Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call)

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”

Tax Propaganda

The following article was posted on the TrumpAccountable.org website August 10, 2017:

TaxPropaganda2

Republican tax reform advocates and the Trump White House have taken note of the mistakes made during the hapless Obamacare repeal effort that culminated in failure in the Senate. One of the biggest mistakes Republicans made was an inability to make the case to the broader population that their replacement was going to be in any way better.

Tax reform advocates friendly to the Republican agenda have already begun a campaign to help the Republican leadership deliver talking points about the need for tax reform. The American Action Network recently launched a 15 second video across national cable platforms featuring Albert Jones, a laid off metal worker from Ohio, who claims that he lost his job because of the U.S. tax code. Continue reading “Tax Propaganda”

Shooting Victim Steve Scalise Would Go Bankrupt With Republican Health Care Plan

NOTE:  We’re glad Rep. Paulsen’s roommate Rep. Scalise has been released from the hospital. We wondered what would happen if Rep. Scalise was faced with healthcare as they have voted to implement for the rest of the country.

The following article by Ben Cohen was posted on the Daily Banter website June 23, 2017:

If you think that the Republican health care bill proposed in the Senate only affects poor people and minorities, you would be completely wrong. The New Republic’s Brian Beutler makes a powerful point about just how important the Affordable Care Act has been for everyday Americans by pointing out that Virginia shooting victim Rep. Steve Scalise would likely be uninsurable after he recovers, and liable for long term care costs until he’s eligible for Medicare. Writes Beutler:

The House and Senate Trumpcare bills gut protections for people with pre-existing conditions in different ways: the former by allowing insurers to price gouge sick people; the latter by allowing insurers to exclude the treatments sick people need from covered benefit schedules, creating adverse selection. Both would destabilize insurance markets for people with pre-existing conditions in at least some states. The Senate bill does not exempt members of Congress, and House Republicans have gone on record with the promise that Trumpcare will apply to them, too.

Continue reading “Shooting Victim Steve Scalise Would Go Bankrupt With Republican Health Care Plan”

U.S. Senate Republicans breathe life into health reforms that deserved to die

The following commentary by the Star Tribune Editorial Board was posted on their website July 25, 2017:

U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell kicked off Tuesday’s debate on the Republican health reform plan by promising “We can do better than Obamacare.” It’s only fair that consumers and patients in Minnesota and elsewhere hold the Senate majority leader from Kentucky — and his party — to his word as debate barrels forward in Congress over plans to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

Will the GOP plan lower monthly premiums for health insurance? Will it lower deductibles that force policyholders to shell out thousands of dollars before coverage kicks in? Will the plan ensure affordable coverage for those with serious medical conditions, expand the number of plans to choose from, and strengthen Medicaid for kids, the elderly and the disabled?

This is what it means to do “better than Obamacare,” and there shouldn’t be any dispute about that. Health reform ought to serve consumers, not political needs. On Tuesday, Republicans selfishly cast aside this responsibility with a vote that breathed new life into their party’s secretive, shapeshifting reforms. Continue reading “U.S. Senate Republicans breathe life into health reforms that deserved to die”

Senate Leaders Press for Health Care Vote, but on Which Bill?

The following article by Thomas Kaplan and Robert Pear was posted on the New York Times website July 20, 2017:

From left, Senators Mitch McConnell, John Cornyn and John Thune leaving the White House on Wednesday after a meeting between President Trump and Republican senators on health care. Credit Stephen Crowley/The New York Times

WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans ended a demoralizing week on Thursday with their leaders determined to press ahead with a vote to begin debating health care next week, but with little progress on securing the votes and no agreement even on which bill to take up.

With President Trump urging them to move forward on their seven-year quest to erase the Affordable Care Act, Republican senators on Thursday still had not decided whether to revive a proposal to replace former President Barack Obama’s health care law with one of their own, or to simply repeal it and work on a replacement later.

The choice is unpalatable: The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said on Thursday that the latest version of the bill to repeal and replace the health law would increase the number of people without health insurance by 15 million next year and by 22 million in 2026. Those figures are the same as the estimates in the budget office’s previous analysis, despite numerous changes to the bill intended to win votes. Continue reading “Senate Leaders Press for Health Care Vote, but on Which Bill?”

Trump threatens electoral consequences for senators who oppose health bill

The following article by Sean Sullivan, Kelsey Snell and David Nakamura was posted on the Washington Post website July 20, 2017:

The Congressional Budget Office on July 19 estimated that a GOP health-care bill ending parts of Obamacare with no immediate replacement would reduce federal deficits by $473 billion over a decade. (Video: Bastien Inzaurralde/Photo: Melina Mara/The Washington Post)

President Trump exhorted lawmakers Wednesday to resurrect the failed Republican plan to “repeal and replace” the Affordable Care Act, injecting fresh turmoil into an issue that had appeared settled the day before, when Senate leaders announced they did not have the votes to pass their bill.

Trump’s remarks, at a lunch with 49 Republican senators, prompted some of them to reopen the possibility of trying to vote on the sweeping legislation they abandoned earlier this week. But there was no new evidence that the bill could pass.

At the lunch, the president also threatened electoral consequences for senators who oppose him, suggesting that Sen. Dean Heller (R-Nev.) could lose his reelection bid next year if he does not back the effort. The president also invited conservative opposition against anyone else who stands in the way.

“Any senator who votes against starting debate is really telling America that you’re fine with Obamacare,” Trump said.

After the collapse of the Better Care Reconciliation Act, which would have repealed and replaced key portions of the Affordable Care Act, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Monday announced plans for a vote on pure repeal instead, a move that seemed designed to either allow — or force — lawmakers to record a vote on what has been the GOP’s top campaign promise of the past seven years.

As he hosted Senate Republicans for a health-care meeting at the White House on July 19, President Trump touted GOP efforts to revamp the Affordable Care Act. (Photo: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

A repeal-only approach, which also lacks the votes to pass, would increase the number of people without health coverage by 17 million next year and by 32 million at the end of a decade, according to a fresh analysis released Wednesday by the Congressional Budget Office.

The forecast by the nonpartisan CBO is nearly identical to estimates the office made in January based on a similar bill that passed the House and Senate in late 2015 — and that was vetoed by President Barack Obama.

“I think we all agree it’s better to both repeal and replace. But we could have a vote on either,” McConnell said after the lunch at the White House.

Trump’s remarks introduced a new level of chaos into the GOP, potentially setting up Senate Republicans to take the blame from angry conservatives for failing to fulfill a long-standing GOP vow.

The effort to undo the Affordable Care Act has been fraught for months with internal GOP divisions. The intraparty tension looms over other big-ticket items Republicans are hoping to pass as they control both chambers of Congress and the White House, including passing a budget and enacting major tax cuts. After six months, they can boast no major legislative achievements.

And now, Republican lawmakers head into the 2018 midterm cycle with a president who appears capable of not having their backs.

Despite those tensions, Trump claimed at the lunch that “we’re very close” to passing a repeal-and-replace bill. It was the latest sign of the disconnect between the president and the Senate. It also came a day after Trump tweeted “let ObamaCare fail” — and two days after he called for a repeal-only bill.

As he hosted Senate Republicans for a health-care meeting at the White House, July 19, President Trump said he “worried” whether Sen. Dean Heller (R-Nev.) would support a revised GOP health-care bill that collapsed on July 17. (Photo: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

The White House appeared determined to keep trying for something. Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services director Seema Verma met with roughly two dozen GOP senators for nearly three hours on Capitol Hill on Wednesday evening. The meeting was arranged by the White House to help persuade wavering senators to back the repeal-and-replace bill, according to people familiar with the meeting who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private planning.

Following the meeting, several senators described the talks as productive, but none would name specific areas of progress or new agreement that resulted from the gathering.

Even as Trump’s team tried to work out policy and political disagreements among members, the president was strong-arming skeptical senators in public. Seated directly to Trump’s right at Wednesday’s lunch was Heller, who is up for reelection in 2018 in a state Democrat Hillary Clinton won.

“Look, he wants to remain a senator, doesn’t he?” Trump asked, Heller smiling at his side. “Okay, and I think the people of your state, which I know very well, I think they’re going to appreciate what you hopefully will do.”

After he returned to the Capitol, Heller sized it up this way: “That’s just President Trump being President Trump.”

Tensions have been evident for a while. After Heller came out against an earlier version of the Senate bill, a conservative organization aligned with Trump vowed to launch an expensive ad campaign against him, angering and shocking many mainstream GOP allies of the senator. Later, the group backed off.

Now, senators are not sure what they will be voting on in the coming days — pure repeal or repeal and replace.

“See, that hasn’t been decided. That’s part of the discussion. So, that’s why I don’t take a position at this point,” Heller said.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.), McConnell’s top deputy, said Wednesday: “I know it seems like we’ve got a bit of whiplash, but I think we’re making progress.”

But even he had no clarity on the next step. “We’re still discussing,” he said.

Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), the chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, told reporters Wednesday that there still are not enough votes for a repeal-only bill.

Separately Wednesday, members of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus started the process of bringing a repeal-only bill to the House floor — a process meant to sidestep GOP leaders reluctant to expose vulnerable members to a politically perilous vote on legislation unlikely to become law.

The House passed its own revision to the Affordable Care Act earlier this year. Wednesday’s gambit would not only allow conservatives to vote for a straight-repeal bill but also force moderates to do the same — adding to the political divisions that Trump had stoked earlier in the day.

“The American people do not know why we did not have something on President Trump’s desk on Jan. 20,” said Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), the group’s chairman. “Here we are at July 20 with nothing to show for it, and they’re tired of waiting.”

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), who has expressed opposition at various times during the months-long health-care drive, said that he understood Trump’s push for repeal and replace at the lunch as a call to return to the broader bill McConnell pulled back earlier this week.

“I think the president showed some real leadership here,” Johnson said.

Even GOP senators who oppose the repeal efforts worry about being blamed for failing to act on health care. A recent Gallup poll found that 70 percent of GOP respondents said they support repealing and replacing Obamacare.

Conservative activists are already aggressively targeting centrist Republicans who have opposed the efforts. On Wednesday, a pair of influential conservative groups launched an “Obamacare Repeal Traitors” website attacking Sens. Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), Rob Portman (Ohio) and Shelley Moore Capito (W.Va.).

“They campaigned on ­REPEAL,” says the website, which the Club for Growth and Tea Party Patriots launched. But now, it says, “they are betraying their constituents by joining with Democrats to defeat Obamacare Repeal efforts!”

Capito has said that she supports repealing the Affordable Care Act, but only if it can be replaced with a bill that doesn’t force millions off their insurance and doesn’t “hurt people.”

“I think we all want to get to the right place,” Capito said after the White House lunch. On Twitter, she sought to use Trump’s words to defend her position, writing: “I’m glad @POTUS agrees that we cannot move to repeal Obamacare without a replacement plan that addresses the needs of West Virginians.”

At the lunch, Trump said, “People should not leave town unless we have a health insurance plan, unless we give our people great health care,” meaning that recess plans should be put off if a deal isn’t reached. Marc Short, the White House’s legislative director, told reporters afterward that “this is not something that we can walk away from.”

Trump, who had invited Republican leaders to a health-care strategy dinner Monday night, was apparently blindsided by the opposition from some conservative members, including Sens. Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Jerry Moran (R-Kan.), whose declared no votes effectively killed the legislation. At lunch, he scolded them.

“The other night, I was surprised when I heard a couple of my friends — my friends — they really were and are,” Trump said, without directly naming the duo. “They might not be very much longer, but that’s okay.”

Trump, as he has done numerous times in recent weeks, reminded the lawmakers that Republicans campaigned against the Affordable Care Act for years and that their supporters are counting on them to make good on their promises.

“I’m ready to act,” Trump said. “I have my pen in hand. I’m sitting in that office. I have pen in hand. You’ve never had that before. For seven years, you’ve had the easy route — we repeal, we replace, but he [Obama] never signs it. I’m signing it. So it’s a little different.”

Mike DeBonis, Juliet Eilperin, Ed O’Keefe, Abby Phillip and Amy Goldstein contributed to this report.

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CBO: GOP Plan Would Spike Premiums, Cut 32M From Insurance Rolls

The following article by the Roll Call staff was posted on RollCall.com July 19, 2017:

Credit: Oscar Gronner

A new Senate GOP health care plan would result in 32 million more people without health insurance, according to a Congressional Budget Office analysis released Wednesday. The measure, similar to a 2015 bill passed by the Senate, would save $473 billion over a decade.

According to the analysis from Congress’ nonpartisan budget scorekeeper, average premiums in the individual marketplace would increased by about 25 percent next year, increasing to 5o percent by 2020 and 100 percent by 2026.

“Under this legislation, about half of the nation’s population would live in areas having no insurer participating in the nongroup market in 2020 because of downward pressure on enrollment and upward pressure on premiums. That share would continue to increase, extending to about three-quarters of the population by 2026,” CBO wrote on its website.  Continue reading “CBO: GOP Plan Would Spike Premiums, Cut 32M From Insurance Rolls”