Nearly 8 in 10 Americans say President Donald Trump should be trying to make the health law work, according to poll conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation. This includes large majorities of Democrats (95 percent) as well as half of Republicans (52 percent) and President Trump’s supporters (51 percent).
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Wait, I thought Obamacare was supposed to solve the problem of access to affordable health coverage—especially for older Americans! Are Democrats now saying their signature legislation has made the problem worse?
Senator Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) has introduced the “Medicare at 55 Act” to allow Americans aged 55-64 to buy into the Medicare health insurance program. Seven other Democrats are original co-sponsors of the legislation.
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The collapse of the Senate’s repeal-and-replace effort does not mean that Congress should give up on health reform. Health costs are spiraling upward because of Obamacare. The American people need relief.
Congress must give it to them, even if it has to do so in piecemeal fashion. Together with some strategic executive actions from the Trump administration, a more gradual plan of attack would achieve far more than “skinny” repeal could have hoped to.
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The ACA is dead, long live the ACA. At a time when it seems that all we hear about in healthcare revolves around the political folly of legislating healthcare, there has been little attention paid to the underlying crisis that threatens access, quality and cost; a workforce that is exhausted, depressed, and clinically, burnt out.
This problem has been lurking behind all the grandstanding of repeal and replace and has been evolving and increasing at an alarming rate. Burnout, in this case, is defined as a syndrome characterized by a loss of enthusiasm for work (emotional exhaustion), a feeling of cynicism (depersonalization), and a low sense of personal accomplishment.
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