Tag: Trumpcare

States In Shock As Republicans Unleash Health Care Chaos

The following article by Froma Harrop was posted on the National Memo website May 10, 2017:

The final total on the vote on the Republicans health care bill was displayed at the Capitol in Washington on Thursday, May 4, 2017. Relieved Republicans muscled their health care bill through the House, taking their biggest step toward dismantling the Obama health care overhaul since Donald Trump took office. HOUSE TELEVISION VIA AP

Social desperation tends to land on the doorsteps of the governments closest to the people. Happily for states and cities, the Affordable Care Act turned their challenging populations of sick, low-income residents into customers for local health care businesses. Unhappily, President Trump and congressional Republicans are in full sabotage mode and threatening to bus these unfortunates back to their doorsteps.

Obamacare has created an estimated 240,000 jobs in health services. These are high-paying jobs and a godsend for cities reeling from factory layoffs. Continue reading “States In Shock As Republicans Unleash Health Care Chaos”

Trumpcare’s Medicaid Cutbacks Will Bring The Real Death Panels

The following article by Joe Conason was posted on the National Memo website May 8, 2017:

The real death panels are coming.

Back in 2009, during the shrill hours of debate over the Affordable Care Act, Sarah Palin warned us solemnly that defenseless Americans “will have to stand in front of Obama’s ‘death panels’ so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their ‘level of productivity in society,’ whether they are worthy of health care.”

Many a snooty elitist dismissed those ominous Facebook pronouncements by the former Alaska governor and Republican vice-presidential nominee, but she was hardly alone in uttering such predictions. Palin and many others on the right claimed that President Obama’s struggle to expand health coverage — considered a human right in most of the modern world — was really a nefarious plot to save money by rationing care. All too soon, some tribunal in Washington, D.C. was bound to condemn Grandma to a cruel and untimely doom to save a few bucks. Continue reading “Trumpcare’s Medicaid Cutbacks Will Bring The Real Death Panels”

Republicans Disregarded the C.B.O., but It Won’t Be Ignored

The following article by Margot Sanger-Katz was posted on the New York Times website May 5, 2017:

Now that the House has passed its big health care bill, it will find out what that bill could actually do.

The Congressional Budget Office, Washington’s nonpartisan scorekeeper, did not have time to evaluate the effects of the American Health Care Act before Thursday’s vote, since the bill was being amended until just before passage. But the budget office will not ignore the health law, and next week it is expected to release detailed estimates of how many people will be covered by the bill, and at what cost to the government.

Several senators have said they won’t proceed with the bill until they know more about its effects.

Republicans’ reluctance to wait for updated estimates became a rallying cry among Democrats critical of the bill. Democrats called out “Where’s the score?” on the House floor Thursday during debate over the bill.

Continue reading “Republicans Disregarded the C.B.O., but It Won’t Be Ignored”

If Trumpcare Ends Up Happening, Up To 7 Million Veterans Could See Their Health Care Ruined

The following article by Michael Hayne was posted on the AlterNet website May 6, 2017:

The ramifications of the AHCA will be felt far and wide.

Photo Credit: John Gomez/Shutterstock.com

The abominable AHCA (or simply Trumpcare), the House Republican’s replacement of Obamacare, is being felt far and wide. While the Senate has already said it has no intention of taking up the House version and the hope is it will die there, many are frightened by the sheer amount of malice the bill contains.

Among the many negatives in the Republican plan to repeal Obamacare, one of the hastily added “improvements” to the bill could wind up making 7 million military veterans ineligible for health care tax credits. The very party that shamelessly exploits the troops out of political expediency, feigning patriotism in the form of flag pins, is now screwing veterans, and Press Secretary Sean Spicer has absolutely no answer for it.  The snafu was discovered by Chris Jacobs, the former policy adviser for the House Republican Conference under Chairman Mike Pence. Jacobs discovered: Continue reading “If Trumpcare Ends Up Happening, Up To 7 Million Veterans Could See Their Health Care Ruined”

50 Preexisting Conditions That Can Make You Lose Your Insurance If Trump and GOP Have Their Way

The following article by Kali Holloway was posted on the AlterNet website May 6, 2017:

In the Republican approach to health care, the sick could be priced out of the insurance they so desperately need.

Credit: ABC News

Republicans have made more than 50 attempts to destroy the Affordable Care Act since its passage in 2009. They made their most successful attempt to date on Thursday, when House GOP members voted to repeal and replace the ACA with their own health care plan. According to estimates, the Republican bill “will create tax breaks worth about $600 billion that will mostly go to health insurance companies, prescription drug manufacturers and the wealthy.” The GOP plan will also cut Medicaid by about $880 billion, draining funds for special education programs in K-12 schools around the country and leaving an estimated 24 million Americans without insurance, among many other consequences. Brand new bill, same GOP cruelty and greed.

One of the most discussed problems with the American Health Care Act, or Trumpcare, is that it would allow states to let health care providers charge people more for coverage. That means the sick could actually be priced out of the insurance they desperately need. The people most likely to suffer under the new Republican are older people and people in rural America, who overwhelmingly went for Trump. In fact, the 11 states with the highest number of adults with preexisting conditions all voted to live in Trump’s America. Continue reading “50 Preexisting Conditions That Can Make You Lose Your Insurance If Trump and GOP Have Their Way”

Who Wins and Who Loses in the Latest G.O.P. Health Care Bill

The following article by Margot Sanger-Katz was posted on the New York Times website May 4, 2017:

A group protesting outside the St. Joseph, Mich., office of Representative Fred Upton on Wednesday. Mr. Upton emerged as a crucial supporter of the effort to revive the G.O.P.’s health care bill. Credit Don Campbell/The Herald-Palladium, via Associated Press

The American Health Care Act, which narrowly won passage in the House on Thursday, could transform the nation’s health insurance system and create a new slate of winners and losers.

While the Senate will probably demand changes, this bill, if it becomes law in its current form, will repeal and replace large portions of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare). It will change the rules and subsidies for people who buy their own insurance coverage, and make major cuts to the Medicaid program, which funds care for the poor and disabled. Continue reading “Who Wins and Who Loses in the Latest G.O.P. Health Care Bill”

Trump praises Australia’s universal health care in meeting with Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull

The following article by Zach Ford was posted on the ThinkProgress website May 5, 2017:

It’s unclear why he’s working with congressional Republicans on the opposite.

President Donald Trump met with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull Thursday night in New York. (May 4) AP

Hours after a smug celebration of the passage of a bill to dismantle Obamacare with House Republicans, President Trump headed to New York to meet with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull. As Trump gloated about how he thinks the bill will improve health care for Americans, he turned to Turnbull and said, “You have better health care than we do.”

Australia’s government provides nationalized health care, and the country spends about half as much as the U.S. does to provide it. Continue reading “Trump praises Australia’s universal health care in meeting with Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull”

An Obligation to Provide Care

There is a key concept often left out of the health care debate and something that politicians seem to continually misunderstand or refuse to acknowledge: that we have an obligation to provide care. This does not necessarily translate to “we as a nation” but “we as clinicians,” who have a moral obligation and, in the case of hospitals, a legal obligation to provide emergency care under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act. There is a need to acknowledge the moral and deontological sentiment that exists here. This was borne out of many failures and Supreme Court decisions resulting from a refusal to treat people, who then died or had bad outcomes. Patient dumping led to overcrowding of emergency rooms in county hospitals, where turning people away may have been legal but was ethically reprehensible.

The continuing frame of thought that health care is a market-based product is doomed. We may continue on this path for some time, but the end is inevitable; either we finally recognize an obligation to providing care or we allow hospitals to turn people away. It is all well and good to be a congressperson and treat health care as a free-market product, but when you are face to face with the bad effects of this mind-set, you may think differently. When the major groups representing clinicians in the trenches are against what you are doing, you ought to take some time to contemplate this.

Ian Wolfe, Minneapolis
Star Tribune, May 5, 2017

AHCA Limits Access for Sick, Gives Tax Break to Wealthy

With all the talk of “protecting” the preexisting conditions in the AHCA, I’m not convinced the GOP definition of protection means anything but allowing the free market to reign over the misfortune of their constituents.

So, what is protection anyway? The online resources I see all include it in a financial sense. For example (of an insurance policy), a promise to pay someone an agreed amount in the event of loss, injury, fire, theft or other misfortune, or “in the event of your death, your family will be protected against any financial problems that may arise.” So I am at first comforted in knowing I will be protected from financial ruin should the unthinkable happen.

But wait: Noticeably absent is a framework for my protection. Without that, we have just blind faith in the free market for the healthy, and risk pools for the rest. Without essential protections that define our rights as purchasers of lifesaving access to health care, without protection from financial demise, why call it insurance?

We need to call it what it is: a plan to fix health care and limit spending by limiting access for the sick, while offering a tax break to the wealthy for health savings account contributions.

Tracie Wollman, Plymouth
Star Tribune, May 5, 2017

Rep. Paulsen’s Yes Vote on Trumpcare

In voting “yes” on the AHCA, Rep. Erik Paulsen sent a clear signal to voters that he stands with the ultraconservative wing of the GOP and not with his constituents. Rather than insisting on public hearings, a Congressional Budget Office report, transparency in government and, ultimately, affordable health care for all, Paulsen proved he is a party puppet, doing the bidding of Trump and Ryan. The Democratic candidate for president has carried Paulsen’s district in three straight general elections. The Third District is moderate. Paulsen is not. His cover is blown once and for all.

Heidi Strommen, Plymouth
Star Tribune, May 5, 2017