The following article by Max Greenwood was posted on the Hill website September 23, 2017:
The following article by Glenn Kessler was posted on the Washington Post website September 23, 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)
“We protect those with preexisting conditions. … The protection is absolutely the same. There’s a specific provision that says that if a state applies for a waiver, it must ensure that those with preexisting conditions have affordable and adequate coverage.”
— Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), interviewed on CNN’s “New Day,” Sept. 20, 2017
In the dispute between late-night host Jimmy Kimmel and Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), one of the key authors of the long-shot GOP effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act, a key issue is whether the proposal maintains the ACA’s guarantee that people with preexisting condition can obtain health insurance. Continue reading “Sen. Cassidy’s misleading claim that preexisting-conditions ‘protection is absolutely the same’”
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 Sam Berger and Emily Gee was posted on the Center for American Progress website September 18, 2017:
With only two weeks left to move forward with a partisan health care repeal bill, some Senate Republicans are trying one last time to rip coverage from millions of Americans. Their latest effort, introduced by Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Bill Cassidy (R-LA), would make devastating cuts to Medicaid and cut and eventually eliminate funding that helps people in the individual insurance market afford coverage, leading to at least 32 million fewer people having coverage after 2026.
Those who did not lose coverage would see their premiums increase significantly. In the first year, premiums would increase by 20 percent. But the increases would be even greater for people with pre-existing conditions because the bill would let insurers in the individual market charge a premium markup based on health status and history, which could increase their premiums by tens of thousands of dollars.
As with a previous Affordable Care Act (ACA) repeal bill in the House, the American Health Care Act (AHCA), Graham-Cassidy would allow states to eliminate protections for people with pre-existing conditions. And just as with that previous proposal, this would increase premiums for people with certain health conditions by tens of thousands of dollars. Continue reading “Graham-Cassidy ACA Repeal Bill Would Cause Huge Premium Increases for People with Pre-Existing Conditions”
The following article by Sean Sullivan and Kelsey Snell was posted on the Washington Post website September 18, 2017:
Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) spoke about his proposal for health-care reform at a news conference on Sept. 13. (Reuters)
A final GOP effort to dismantle the Affordable Care Act burst into view this week in the Senate, where leaders began pressuring rank-and-file Republicans with the hope of voting on the package by the end of the month.
The renewed push comes nearly two months after the last attempt to overhaul the law known as Obamacare failed in a dramatic, early-morning vote, dealing a substantial defeat to President Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and prompting many to assume that the effort was dead. Continue reading “New push to replace Obamacare reflects high stakes for Republicans”
