Posted on 06/22/2017 8:08:08 AM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
Senate Republicans, who have promised a repeal of the Affordable Care Act for seven years, took a major step on Thursday toward that goal, unveiling a bill to cut Medicaid deeply and end the health law’s mandate that most Americans have health insurance.
The 142-page bill would create a new system of federal tax credits to help people buy health insurance, while offering states the ability to drop many of the benefits required by the Affordable Care Act, like maternity care, emergency services and mental health treatment.
The Senate bill — once promised as a top-to-bottom revamp of the health bill passed by the House last month — instead maintains its structure, with modest adjustments. The Senate version is, in some respects, more moderate than the House bill, offering more financial assistance to some lower-income people to help them defray the rapidly rising cost of private health insurance.
But the Senate measure, like the House bill, would phase out the extra money that the federal government has provided to states as an incentive to expand eligibility for Medicaid. And like the House measure, it would put the entire Medicaid program on a budget, ending the open-ended entitlement that now exists.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Its not repeal but conservatives have acceded to political reality that without a Senate super-majority, Republicans won’t be able to push through full repeal.
Everyone is settling for modest changes to Obamacare in the meantime and leave the issue of repeal to the next election.
I don't know why the author of that piece gets so hung up on the idea of whether the GOP is actually "repealing" or "amending" ObamaCare. The small steps described above will repeal some of the worst aspects of ObamaCare and will solve about 95% of the problem.
Does the bill give states the power to allow insurance carriers to sell policies with insurance caps and with restrictions on pre-existing conditions? I believe the House version of the bill did.
They just need to rename Obamacare and move on. Obscuring how it works without changing the goals is harmful, not an advance. It should take a day for house and senate to agree on a new name, then tell us we misheard for 7 years and actually had said “Repeal and Rename”.
Yup - conservatives who complain the bill doesn’t give them everything they want miss the point it gives us a lot of what we do want.
Politics is the art of the possible and moderate Republicans aren’t going to vote for a repeal bill and no Democrat is going to vote for one.
Let’s get to Trump a bill he can sign.
Schumer’s outright lies and misrepresentations are hurting the lunatic democrats as much as Nasty Pelosi and other sycophants do.
So legislators and voters who expect politicians to keep their word are "hardliners".
Spit.
Repeal of the mandate, if truly in the bill,is key.
People do not want to be FORCED to purchase something by government.
Allowing insurance companies to sell health insurance across state lines won’t help much unless the onerous regulations are removed. Giving a Mississippi insurance company the right to sell insurance in New York isn’t going to make the insurance any less expensive if Federal law imposes all kinds of mandates that make the insurance unaffordable anyway. What ObamaCare does is take New York’s insurance requirements and imposes them on Mississippi — which just makes the coverage unaffordable in Mississippi.
If the states will do that. They cannot request a waiver unless they establish, fund, and manage a high-risk pool. Or unless they sign on to a currently non-existent federal high risk pool. Without the waiver then insurance companies are required to pick up the responsibility. States are going to have a hard enough time dealing with the Medicaid funding reductions, you really think that a lot of them are going to take on the responsibility for paying and managing a high risk pool as well?
But if the one insurance provider
pulls out of Mississippi, you would not be at the mercy of the government.
Its no fix at all... there are only 2 choices that would work... either a single payer system where gov't controls everything, or get the gov't out of it and let the market create competition and choices (my preference).
Anything in between is like being "sort of" pregnant.
The mandate is there, just in a different form. Will the government fine you if you don't have insurance? No. Can the insurance companies stick it to you with higher premiums if you don't continue coverage? Yes.
Where is the incentive for a Mississippi insurance company to want to sell policies in New York to begin with?
They are not repealing it and will not repeal it. They are changing its name so they can hang it on Trump and they are tweaking it around the edges. It will be no cheaper nor will it accomplish any improvement to access to medical treatment. It is still designed to lead to the Republicans’ gold standard Single Payer.
One (YUGE) bite, at a time.
Perhaps the best we can do with what we CURRENTLY have.
MAGA cannot happen overnight, but I am happy with the strides we are making, so far. Better than any other candidate would be making and MUCH better than the alternative....Hildebeast.
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