Tag: Obamacare

Repealing the ACA without a Replacement — The Risks to American Health Care

The following commentary by former President Barack Obama was posted on the New England Journal of Medicine website January 26, 2017:

Health care policy often shifts when the country’s leadership changes. That was true when I took office, and it will likely be true with President-elect Donald Trump. I am proud that my administration’s work, through the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and other policies, helped millions more Americans know the security of health care in a system that is more effective and efficient. At the same time, there is more work to do to ensure that all Americans have access to high-quality, affordable health care. What the past 8 years have taught us is that health care reform requires an evidence-based, careful approach, driven by what is best for the American people. That is why Republicans’ plan to repeal the ACA with no plan to replace and improve it is so reckless. Rather than jeopardize financial security and access to care for tens of millions of Americans, policymakers should develop a plan to build on what works before they unravel what is in place. Continue reading “Repealing the ACA without a Replacement — The Risks to American Health Care”

Study: 43,000 Americans Could Die Because Of Obamacare Repeal

The following article by Ilana Novick was posted on the AlterNet website January 23, 2017:

Remember death panels? It seems like only yesterday when rabid Tea Partiers tried to convince the public that under the Affordable Care Act, Grandma’s fate was in the hands of so-called death panels, a fictitious team of insurers and (probably devil-worshippers) Democrats who would determine the extent of coverage. Many of the most diehard proponents of this lie, who went on to benefit from the ACA, are about to meet the real death panelists—their names are Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell, Tom Price, and Donald Trump, and according to two experts who have studied the impact of insurance coverage on death rates for 30 years, approximately 43,000 Americans are at risk of death if the ACA is repealed. Continue reading “Study: 43,000 Americans Could Die Because Of Obamacare Repeal”

Trump Wants To Flood White House Press Briefings With Sycophants

The following article by Matt Gertz was posted on the Media Matters website January 17, 2017:

Donald J. Trump in Selma, NC. Credit Damon Winter/The New York Times

Donald Trump has a message for the White House press corps: The press briefing room the journalists have used since the 1970s belongs to him, and if he wants to take it away, he can.

On Saturday, Esquire reported that the incoming Trump administration has discussed evicting the press from the briefing room and holding the daily briefings with the press secretary in a space outside of the White House. “They are the opposition party,” a senior official told the magazine. “I want ’em out of the building. We are taking back the press room.” Continue reading “Trump Wants To Flood White House Press Briefings With Sycophants”

The Republicans’ Plan for Medicaid: A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing

The following post by Maura Calsyn and Thomas Huelskoetter was posted on the Center for American Progress’ website January 12, 2017:

Elevators close on Rep. Tom Price (R-GA) as he arrives at Trump Tower in New York on November 16, 2016. AP/Carolyn Kaster

President-elect Donald Trump and Republicans in the U.S. Congress are poised to dismantle the Medicaid program, which provides millions of Americans with a health care safety net. First, they plan to repeal key parts of the Affordable Care Act, or ACA—including the law’s Medicaid expansion—through the budget reconciliation process without yet offering any replacement plan. Second, congressional plans to drastically restructure the Medicaid program will make coverage less secure for those who remain enrolled in the program. Continue reading “The Republicans’ Plan for Medicaid: A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing”

Americans don’t want to scrap Obamacare without something to replace it, new poll shows

The following article by Noam N. Levey was posted on the L.A. Times website January 6, 2017:

The vast majority of Americans do not support Republican plans to repeal the Affordable Care Act without enacting a replacement, a new nationwide poll finds.

Nearly half the country does not want the law, commonly called Obamacare, to be repealed at all.

Even among those who want to see the law rolled back, most say Congress should wait to vote on repeal until the details of a replacement plan have been announced.

Just two in 10 Americans support the GOP strategy to quickly vote for repeal and work out details of a replacement later, according to the poll by the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation.

President-elect Donald Trump and senior GOP lawmakers indicated this week that they plan to move quickly to sweep away major pillars of Obamacare, insisting they have a mandate from voters to scrap the 2010 healthcare law.

But Republicans haven’t detailed how they will replace the law’s coverage program, which has helped extend health insurance to more than 20 million previously uninsured Americans. Continue reading “Americans don’t want to scrap Obamacare without something to replace it, new poll shows”

Health care law hasn’t dented hiring or hours, as critics predicted.

Well, looks light the fear mongering on the right was (yet again) unfounded. The following by Max Ehrenfreund of the Washington Post appeared in the August 13, 2015, StarTribune:

by Kevin LaMarque
by Kevin LaMarque

President Obama’s health care overhaul hasn’t meant less time on the job for workers, according to three newly published studies that challenge one of the main arguments raised by critics of the Affordable Care Act.

One provision requires businesses with more than 50 employees to offer health insurance to those working at least 30 hours a week.

Republicans, and some Democrats, worried that employers would look for ways to get around the mandate, either by giving their employees fewer than 30 hours, or by hiring fewer people.

So far, though, researchers say employers have not changed how they hire and schedule their workers.

“There really hasn’t been nearly the change that some people were expecting,” said Chris Ryan of the payroll-management firm ADP.

ADP analysts studied the payrolls of clients, about 75,000 firms and organizations. They found no overall change in employees’ weekly schedules between 2013 and 2014.

According to ADP’s analysis, scheduling shifts were trivial in every economic sector, even in industries that rely heavily on part-time work.

ADP’s findings were confirmed in another study by Aparna Mathur and Sita Nataraj Slavov of George Mason University and Michael Strain of the conservative American Enterprise Institute.

Their paper, published this month in the journal Applied Economics Letters, used data from the federal Current Population Survey and finds no statistically significant change in the proportion of part-time workers in the sectors most likely to be affected by the law.

An analysis by Bowen Garrett and Robert Kaestner of the Urban Institute reached largely the same conclusions.

Your can read the original post here.