Tag: Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act

. President Trump on Saturday chided Democrats who praised Sen. John McCain's (R-Ariz.) opposition to Senate Republicans' latest effort to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. "Tell that to the people of Arizona who were deceived. 116% increase!" ), which seeks to repeal certain provisions of ObamaCare and replace them with federal block grants. Early studies predicted that states such as Arizona and Alaska would lose funding under the Graham-Cassidy ObamaCare repeal. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kent.) But McCain's defection could prompt other GOP senators to follow suit.

. Consequently, if Republicans change or repeal Obamacare, they will hurt kids who do not have Jimmy Kimmel's income and insurance plan. Thanks to our health care insurance, which I get through my employer, we have the means to pay for her monthly medicine, which would otherwise cost more than I make. If we had Obamacare, we would not be able to afford the medicine. But I know more than one forced to go on Obamacare and their experiences are far worse and more costly than what they had before Obamacare. But Kimmel had a sick son, so who cares about those people. Because Jimmy Kimmel had a sick son, there is no reason at all to care about my friend, who, to avoid the fine for not having insurance, now has a health care insurance plan that literally no doctor in Georgia will accept.

Democratic senators are reigniting their calls to fight against another Republican healthcare push that aims to repeal and replace ObamaCare after reports surfaced that President Trump and GOP leaders are working to garner support for Cassidy-Graham legislation. Prominent upper chamber lawmakers like Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass. "Drop what you are doing to start calling, start showing up, start descending on DC," Murphy tweeted Sunday. "I'm alarmed," Sen. Brian Shatz tweeted, while linking to a Politico report that describes the GOP leadership's back-door push to find support for the legislation. Many Democratic senators have called for the bills defeat. The measure, put forward by Republican Sens. ), Dean Heller (Nev.), Ron Johnson (Wis.) and Lindsey Graham (S.C.), aims to give more power to states by converting ObamaCare funding for subsidies — which help people afford healthcare coverage and pay for Medicaid expansion — into a block grant to states. While Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has withheld full-throttled support by telling Cassidy and Graham find the necessary 51 votes on their own, Cassidy says leadership is asking the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) to prioritize its analysis of the measure in an effort to get it to the floor. “Mitch has always said, ‘Show me you can get 50 votes.’ ”

2 GOP heavyweights brawl over Obamacare bill. “The Finance Committee is free to deal with these same issues if it would like to. It’s unclear so far whether Democrats will go along with the changes — or whether Republicans like Hatch will agree the flexibility goes far enough to warrant continued funding of subsidies to shore up the Democrats’ health law. “If Congress doesn’t act by the end of the month, premiums go up 20 percent, 5 percent of the counties have no insurance companies selling and the federal debt goes up by nearly $200 billion to pay for increased subsidies,” Alexander said. A bill dealing with waiver funding would land in Finance. If it’s about insurance markets, it would go to HELP. For instance, the parliamentarian ruled that a Senate Obamacare repeal bill that changed waivers was in HELP’s jurisdiction. “We’re certainly not going to try to mark up a bill in our committee that doesn’t belong in our committee,” Alexander said. But the Affordable Care Act, including the state waivers, muddied the well-defined jurisdictional lanes a little bit. “We have shared jurisdiction on health care and it’s awkward but it’s no reason for inaction.” In fact, it may make his effort to pass a bipartisan bill to try to stabilize the markets an even heavier lift.

… Some Republicans are perplexed that Trump is prioritizing a DACA deal with Democrats over one last shot at Obamacare, which can be repealed on party lines for just two more weeks. We've got [16] days to deal with this," said Graham. Chan School of Public Health poll, most Republican voters still do want Congress to prioritize Obamacare repeal, naming it their top priority. Only 16 percent of Republicans said ACA repeal should not be a priority for Congress. Among Democrats, 60 percent say repeal-and-replace should not be a priority. HRSA's Sigounas said the award would be directed to nearly 1,200 health centers in order to expand access to mental health and substance misuse services. It's been more than a month since Trump said that he would declare a national emergency on opioids, with senior administration officials reportedly split over the cost and strategy. “ THANK GOODNESS IT'S FRIDAY PULSE — Where we're throwing virtual rice at Jason Millman, our wonderful deputy health care editor who's marching down the aisle this weekend. — Uninsured rate: 6 percent — ACA enrollment: 157,832 as of January, a 3 percent decline from the prior year after a 35 percent surge two years ago. CBO: Obamacare premiums expected to spike by 15 percent next year.

Graham-Cassidy Returns Control of Health Care to States and Individuals. But the current law is a disaster – premiums and deductibles are spiraling upward while the latest official estimates show 1,478 counties, over 45 percent of the counties in America, will have just one insurance company in 2018. Graham-Cassidy-Heller-Johnson (GCHJ) is the last train leaving the station. All aboard. It repeals the individual mandate, which is imposing harsh tax penalties on people who can't afford Obamacare's sky-high premiums. GCHJ also repeals the employer mandate, which is holding small businesses under 50 employees. Unlike previous Republican bills, GCHJ retains the rest of the Obamacare taxes, and uses them starting in 2020 to fund a formula-based block grant to the states that replaces both Obamacare's expansion of Medicaid to able-bodied working-age adults and the vast subsidies that flow through Obamacare's exchanges. That means a cut in federal funding for Massachusetts, which receives a vastly disproportionate share of all Obamacare spending, and to a lesser extent California and New York. Unlike previous health care bills that sought to replace a failed Democratic one-size-fits-all national vision of health care with a single Republican vision, GCHJ takes a more modest approach that repeals Obamacare's most grievous injuries to constitutional freedom and then uses a block grant to allow the states to sort out the specifics for themselves. President Trump welcomed the bill's introduction, saying: "inaction is not an option, and I sincerely hope that Senators Graham and Cassidy have found a way to address the Obamacare crisis."