“House Speaker Paul Ryan has made a key Republican motive for pushing ahead with the House GOP health plan explicit in recent interviews: passing the health package first facilitates deeper tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations in subsequent tax legislation.” More …
Healthcare
GOP’s Biggest Health Care Achievement Has Been Making Obamacare More Popular
“The ACA is now more popular than Donald Trump, Mike Pence, Paul Ryan, or the GOP.” More …
Trump’s On the Verge of Exploding the Health Insurance Market
“Trump tells advisers he wants to end key Obamacare subsidies. Many senior aides oppose the move for fear it will backfire politically.” More …
Health Insurers Plan Big Obamacare Rate Hikes — and They Blame Trump
“The growing frustration with the Trump administration’s management — reflected in letters to state regulators and in interviews with more than two dozen senior industry and government officials nationwide — undercuts a key White House claim that Obamacare insurance marketplaces are collapsing on their own. Instead, according to many officials, it is the Trump administration that is driving much of the current instability by refusing to commit to steps to keep markets running, such as funding aid for low-income consumers or enforcing penalties for people who go without insurance.” More …
A Side-by-Side Comparison of Obamacare and the GOP’s Replacement Plan
“Here’s how the proposed Republican American Health Care Act—along with various amendments to the bill—compares to the 2010 Affordable Care Act.” More.
Medicare, Medicaid, Food Stamps and Unemployment on the GOP Chopping Block
“The House Budget Committee is considering instructing Congress to pursue the cuts to a rarely-touched slice of the budget that totaled $2.4 trillion in 2016 and which includes spending on safety-net programs like Medicare, Medicaid, unemployment benefits and food stamps.” More.
Thoughts From a Hospital Bed
“And what it means to be healthy, or unhealthy, in the United States of 2017.” More …
Republicans’ Trumpcare Bill Takes $600 Billion Out of Health Care to Cut Taxes for the Rich
Trumpcare eliminates $600 billion in taxes. “When you take all that money out of the system, something has to give. And in the case of the various iterations of Affordable Care Act repeal, the thing that gives is the quality of health insurance provided to Americans with below-average incomes or above-average health needs.
- It eliminates a 3.8 percent tax that applied to capital gains, dividend, and interest income for families with $250,000 or more in income ($125,000 for singles).
- It eliminates a 0.9 percent tax on wage income in excess of $250,000 a year ($200,000 for unmarried people).
- It eliminates taxes on health insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, and medical device manufacturers.” More.
These Are All the People the Republican Trumpcare Bill Will Hurt
“The Congressional Budget Office estimated in March that 24 million people would lose health insurance if the AHCA were to pass, and the changes made to the bill in the ensuing two months have only made it less generous and more likely to jeopardize coverage. And because the bill substantially weakens regulations for both individual and employer plans, millions of people who still get insurance will see the extent of their coverage shrink, and see themselves forced to pay out of pocket for expensive procedures that would otherwise be covered.” More …
Latest Obamacare Repeal Plan Would Explode Premiums for People with Pre-Existing Conditions
“In an effort to revive the American Health Care Act, or AHCA, House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) and congressional Republicans proposed a plan for an ‘invisible risk pool.’ Word has leaked that the pool is part of a broader to allow insurers in the individual market to charge a premium markup for enrollees with pre-existing conditions, with the pool put forth as a way to offset the premium increases resulting from the rest of the plan. Even before these changes, the AHCA would have thrown 24 million people off of their coverage to pay for massive tax cuts for the rich. Ryan’s most recent attempt to alter the bill would be even more harmful. Enrollees could see premium increases of tens of thousands of dollars, and the proposed invisible risk pool would shave only a tiny sliver off these increased costs for the sickest consumers.” More.