Core provisions of the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, were ruled unconstitutional by a Texas judge on Friday following a lawsuit brought by a group of Republican attorneys general from 20 states against Democratic attorneys general from 14 states led by California's Xavier Becerra.Zero Hedge
In a sudden change of heart that kills senate Republicans’ effort to pass a bill to repeal and replace Obamacare before a rule allowing Republicans to circumvent a Democratic filibuster expires at the end of the month, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz is now saying he won’t support the Graham-Cassidy Obamacare repeal bill.
Cruz, who revealed his position during a panel discussion at a Texas Tribune conference in Austin, suggested that the proposal also lacks the vote of Sen. Mike Lee, according to Politico. The Texas Republican said he and Lee offered amendments to the Graham-Cassidy proposal last week that would go further in bringing down Obamacare premiums but that the changes weren’t included in the latest draft of the bill.Governing is harder than opposing.
The logic behind the design of the Affordable Care Act does not hold up well when faced with the reality of how markets actually work outside cities. ACA exchanges were built on the fundamental idea that competition between regulated private insurance companies would improve quality and hold down prices, but competition is lacking in most rural counties. That’s very unlikely to ever change....The Intercept
Many health care activists are now pushing to adopt what is called a “single payer” health care system, where one public health insurance program would cover everyone. The U.S. currently has one federal program like that: Medicare. Expanding it polls very well.
One of the activists pushing for such an expansion is Max Fine, someone who is intimately familiar with the program — because he helped create it. Fine is the last surviving member of President Kennedy’s Medicare Task Force, and he was also President Johnson’s designated debunker against the health insurance industry.
Fine, now 91, wrote to The Intercept recently to explain that Medicare was never intended to cover only the elderly population, and that expanding it to everyone was a goal that its architects long campaigned for....Could the GOP pick up on this?
After the death of the Senate healthcare bill yesterday, The Intercept reached out to Fine for comment about where Congress should go next. “Single payer is the only real answer and some day I believe the Republicans will leap ahead of the Democrats and lead in its enactment,” he speculated, “just as did Bismarck in Germany and David Lloyd George and Churchill in the UK.”
The first step of any political reform, I’ve always believed, is to figure out how to achieve the desired goal with the minimum number of changes to the existing legal structure. [Beowulf if a lawyer.] As I’ve written before, Obama’s healthcare plan should have simply been a universal plan similar to Medicare (if not Medicare itself) that covered every American from the day they were born instead of when they turned 65. It would have been faster, cheaper, more universal (as in 100%) and more popular. It was a mistake Obama didn’t take that route and unlike Bill Clinton, he didn’t have an excuse for it....
Democrats have a sharp message for Republicans crowing over Thursday’s House vote to dismantle ObamaCare: The healthcare system is now yours.
“Whether they voted for it or not, Republicans own TrumpCare now,” Rep. Linda Sanchez (Calif.), the vice chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, said moments after the vote.
“They put their name next to your paying more for less,” echoed House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). “And we’ll make sure that the public is aware of that.”...
Trump and Ryan seem to be the early targets of the Democratic rebranding effort.
“They’re going to own it –– absolutely. And as we move forward, everything here is either RyanCare or TrumpCare. Or RyanTrumpCare,” Connolly said.
“They’re going to own it,” he repeated.
The Republican plan to repeal and replace the the Affordable Care Act (ACA), which narrowly passed a vote in the House today, rolls back protections for people with pre-existing conditions, which could increase health care costs for an estimated 130 million Americans.
The American Health Care Act stipulates that states can allow insurers to charge people with pre-existing conditions more for health insurance (which is banned under the ACA) if the states meet certain conditions, such as setting up high-risk insurance pools. Insurers still cannot deny people coverage outright, as was a common practice before the ACA's passage, but they can hike up premiums to an unaffordable amount, effectively pricing people out of the market.Fortune
The House passed the American Health Care Act in a 217 to 213 vote, sending the bill to the upper chamber. Yet, Senate leadership has acknowledged the legislation will need to change in the chamber in order to get enough of its members on board.
“We can’t be for half a dozen different proposals; we have to be for a proposal for us to get 51 votes in the Senate,” Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas) told The Hill an hour before the House vote.
“We’ll start with the House bill, but we’ll need to work with every member of the Senate conference to see what they need to get to yes.”
Likely changes could focus on Medicaid and adding increased financial assistance, in the form of tax credits, to help low-income Americans afford health insurance.
It’s possible the Senate could run into the same problem the House toiled over for almost two months. Move the bill to right, and moderates will defect. Move the bill to the center, and the measure will lose conservative votes.A big difference between the House and Senate is that many congressional districts are safe for incumbents owing to gerrymandering, while senators have to stand for general election by the entire state, putting their odds in greater play.
Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz revved up hundreds of Tea Party activists at Wednesday's "Storm Congress" rally against the American Health Care Act crafted by Speaker Paul Ryan (R.-Wis.) to stabilize health insurance markets, rather than repeal the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Obamacare....Breitbart News
President Trump’s push to pass the GOP healthcare bill risks alienating his base of grassroots conservative supporters, Tea Party leader Mark Meckler told The Hill on Tuesday.
Conservative activists have so far directed their ire at Speaker Paul Ryan(R-Wis.). Unhappy with legislation they see as a half-measure, they’ve dubbed the bill “RINO-Care,” a reference to “Republicans in Name Only.” But activists have stayed away from attacks against Trump, even as the White House whips support for the bill.
Meckler says that could soon change....
“If the grassroots don't see some aggressive moves soon on his part to push for full repeal, the honeymoon will come to a very quick and harsh end. I'm already hearing the rumblings.”
“The grassroots fuse is short on this stuff,” Meckler continued. “We are used to being betrayed by politicians. So that's what we expect. If Trump starts looking like a politician in that regard, his support from all but the most rabid supporters will quickly dry up.…
The top issues for conservatives polled by Meckler’s group are appointing Constitutionalists to the courts, repealing and replacing ObamaCare, making the military stronger, passing tax reform and rolling back Obama’s regulatory actions....The Hill
The White House ran an internal examination of the potential impacts of the American Health Care Act and found that the number of Americans who would be uninsured within 10 years could actually be closer to 26 million, not the 24 million projected by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).Wowsers! That's enough to give anyone political heartburn, and for some officeholders it would be walking the plank.
There are more details, but the basic outlines of the plan are simple: Cut taxes on the rich, cut spending on the poor, and expose more families to rising health care costs. The thing is, we’re talking about health care here. People will need the same amount of health care no matter what Congress does. If the government pays less for health care, poor people will have to pay more. If they can afford it, Trumpcare is effectively the same as a tax on the poor. If they can’t afford it, it’s even worse. This is as naked an example of class warfare as you’ll see today.Baseline Scenario
This deep dive into our polling data shows that people are demanding the impossible: cheap, comprehensive health insurance that they can purchase only when they need it. Unable to accomplish universal health insurance, Democrats took the unpopular step of mandating health insurance because they recognized it was necessary for the marketplaces to function. To date, Republicans have avoided making explicit how they will negotiate the popular and unpopular provisions of Obamacare, preferring to promise, in Trump’s words, “something terrific”. Now that they have full control of the Presidency and Congress, Republicans have tough choices to make. The majority of Americans might support Trump’s healthcare plan now; do not be surprised if that changes quickly when they find out how much they actually like Obamacare!Predictwise
But speaking of wonkery, let’s take a shallow dive into Trump’s softening on health care, which in at least one key aspect, doesn’t make much sense. He reports that in his meeting with President Obama, the President convinced him that parts of the Affordable Care Act are worth preserving, including the requirement that insurers cover those with pre-existing conditions.
But for that part of the law to work, you need healthy people to subsidize sicker people, as the latter must be covered. That implies mandates and if you mandate coverage, you must have individual subsidies and “community rating” (no individual underwriting; some variation within geo-areas allowed based on age and tobacco use). Without such provisions, the pre-existing condition requirement is meaningless, as insurers will offer unaffordable care to such persons.
In other words, there are lots of interacting, moving parts to the ACA, and it’s hard to pull out one thread…There are only two simple solutions. Private markets and rationing by risk and price, or single payer. This is one case where the eluded middle holds.
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| What the hell happened???? |
