Two top House Republicans on health policy reiterated promises Monday to replace the Affordable Care Act after repealing it.
Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.), who is vying to lead the Energy and Commerce Committee next year, said the House GOP’s “Better Way” health plan will be the starting point for reform efforts. He referenced high-risk pools as the best way to require insurers to cover pre-existing conditions without having a mandate to purchase plans. Tax credits would help people afford coverage, he said.
“We just want to bring more choices, more competition,” Shimkus said. “Competition drives higher quality, lower cost. Always does, always will.”
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President Obama will be leaving office with the Affordable Care Act, his signature policy initiative, in deep peril. An incoming Republican president and Congress, concerned with the cost of ACA exchange plans jumping by an average 25 percent next year and employee health care costs rising, have pledged to repeal the law. For his part, the President sought to shift the blame for rising out-of-pocket cost from the ACA’s flaws to employers and insurers. During a recent speech defending the law, he said the ACA has had no impact on the affordability of employer-provided health care benefits “except to make it a better value.” As the President put it, “if your premium is going up, it’s not because of Obamacare. It’s because of your employer or your insurer — even though sometimes they try to blame Obamacare for why the rates go up. It’s not because of any policy of the Affordable Care Act that the rates are going up.”
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Oscar Insurance Corp., the Silicon Valley-backed health-care startup, continued to lose tens of millions of dollars in the third quarter as the company exits some markets and works to diversify away from of its Obamacare business.
The New York-based company sells health insurance to individuals in new markets set up by the Affordable Care Act. Its attempt to reinvent the insurance business has been marked by large losses — in the third quarter, closely held Oscar lost $45 million in New York, Texas and California, according to filings with regulators. That follows losses of $83 million in those states during the first six months of this year.
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Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo got into a heated exchange with controversial Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber on Tuesday as the two disagreed over skyrocketing health insurance premiums.
Gruber claimed Obamacare has actually “saved people money,” despite recent damaging headlines indicating President Barack Obama’s signature health care law will cause a 25 percent increase in key premiums. He also claimed the industry is just not “prepared” yet for the “new and innovative insurance market.”
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When the new Congress and President-elect Trump take office in January, Republicans will have a real chance to repeal President Obama’s Affordable Care Act. If they succeed, it will be the result of their carefully executed strategy to repeal the law and repeated congressional votes to do so. This approach was the subject of much derision from Democrats, but sticking to it has now put the Republicans in a position where they can reach their goal.
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Throughout the campaign, President-Elect Donald Trump’s entire health message consisted of promising to repeal the Affordable Care Act.
That remains difficult with Democrats still commanding enough power in the Senate to block the 60 votes needed for a full repeal. Republicans could use fast-track budget authority to make some major changes to the law, although that could take some time. In the short term, however, Trump could use executive power to make some major changes on his own.
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The GOP’s long-discussed dreams of repealing Obamacare became closer to reality early Wednesday morning when Donald Trump was elected president.
Six years after President Barack Obama signed the Affordable Care Act into law and after more than 60 attempts to repeal it, Republicans now have a good chance to advance their own agenda.
While on the campaign trail, Trump repeatedly promised voters that he would repeal Obamacare if he was elected president and even called on congressional Republicans to call a “special session” to move forward with rolling back the law.
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Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber told CNN’s Carol Costello on Monday that it is not possible to just “get rid of the parts” of the health care law that people do not like because that was tried and “premiums went through the roof.”
Costello interviewed Gruber on her show and asked how Americans’ health care premiums would be affected if President-elect Donald Trump repealed parts of the Affordable Care Act that are unpopular after taking office.
“So, let’s say he keeps the parts of the law that people really like,” Costello said. “What would that do to all of our premiums? If he could keep all of the elements that you say that Congress might reject.”
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President-elect Trump and the GOP-controlled Congress can repeal Obamacare pretty easily, but the biggest question is when and if there will be a transition while a replacement gets crafted.
Trump has promised to repeal Obamacare in its entirety and congressional Republicans are on board. However, when the repeal would take effect is largely in doubt, as some Republicans are wary of immediately ending coverage for millions of people without a replacement.
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President-elect Trump said that he was open to keeping parts of Obamacare. The Wall Street Journal reports, “Mr. Trump said he favors keeping the prohibition against insurers denying coverage because of patients’ existing conditions, and a provision that allows parents to provide years of additional coverage for children on their insurance policies.” He’s not the first Republican to advocate keeping these popular provisions of the law. Keeping the under-26 provision is pretty close to a consensus among Hill Republicans. It’s not the ideal policy, in my view. But it’s compatible with a much freer and better-functioning health-care market than we have now, and it’s worth accepting as part of legislation that enables that market.
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