It has become a tired, familiar act. Members of the House Freedom Caucus say they are the only true conservatives, while other congressional Republicans are RINOs, “Republicans in Name Only.” In the latest episode, the Freedom Caucus and its outside allies—including Heritage Action and FreedomWorks—denounced the GOP health-care bill as “ObamaCare Lite.”
These claims confused the grass roots but were simply untrue. Look at the legislation’s text, which canceled ObamaCare’s insurance exchanges, halted and reversed its Medicaid expansion, killed its taxes, and whacked its individual and employer mandates.
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You cannot do health care reform if it frightens patients who believe they will lose access to the care they are already receiving. This is why the Congressional Budget Office estimates showing tens of millions of people losing insurance as a result of what Speaker Paul Ryan and company were trying to do was so devastating. It’s that kind of reality that killed Obamacare after it became law. Whatever Congress does must ensure stability and continuity of care, especially among the most vulnerable populations during the transition period between what we have now and what comes next. Congress’ first concern when it comes to health care reform should be about producing better health outcomes.
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The Wall Street Journal makes an important point today about a subset of the Obamacare repeal fight: the lobbying to repeal the law’s taxes, like the ones on medical devices and investment income for the wealthy. It gets more complicated to get rid of them, the Journal points out, if President Trump and Congress don’t reach some kind of resolution on Trumpcare. That would shift all of the lobbying for repeal of those taxes to the tax reform fight, which is already likely to be complicated enough.
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