A coalition of roughly 40 House Republicans and Democrats plan to unveil a slate of Obamacare fixes Monday they hope will gain traction after the Senate’s effort to repeal the law imploded.
The Problem Solvers caucus, led by Tom Reed (R-N.Y.) and Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.), is fronting the effort to stabilize the ACA markets, according to multiple sources. But other centrist members, including Rep. Kurt Schrader (D-Ore.), and several other lawmakers from the New Democrat Coalition and the GOP’s moderate Tuesday Group are also involved.
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Congress’s last-ditch attempt to pass a “skinny” bill to kill a few pieces of the health law — many of which Trump could have abolished himself with an executive order — collapsed.
In the intervening six months, Republicans were bedeviled by an enormous backlash from a public that suddenly decided it likes the health care law, cold feet over stripping health care coverage from millions of Americans, damaging intraparty squabbling and a White House that threw bombs at their efforts. Ultimately, an old truth held: Once politicians bestow social benefits, it’s almost impossible to take them away.
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Shortly before 1:30 a.m. Friday, McCain strode to the well of the Senate, and gestured his hand downward to vote “no.” Stunned gasps echoed throughout the chamber.
“I thought it was the right vote,” McCain told reporters as he left the Capitol. “I do my job as a senator.”
It was a shocking — yet fitting — coda for the Senate’s health care battle, starring the veteran senator with a well-polished maverick streak. Within days he went from Obamacare repeal’s savior to its executioner.
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A Health and Human Services analysis of Sen. Ted Cruz’s proposal to let insurers sell plans that don’t comply with Obamacare regulations appears to back up the Texas Republican’s claim that the idea would lower premiums across the individual insurance market. The analysis purports that the amendment offered to the Senate’s Obamacare repeal bill would slash premiums for certain Obamacare enrollees by 2020, and save even more for consumers who opt for cheaper, no frills products. HHS also found the amendment would boost enrollment by as much as as 16.1 million people by 2024, more than the nearly 14 million topline projected under Obamacare.
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A decade after the nation’s top hospitals used all their advertising and lobbying clout to keep their tax-exempt status, pointing to their vast givebacks to their communities, they have seen their revenue soar while cutting back on the very givebacks they were touting, according to a POLITICO analysis.
Hospitals’ behavior in the years since the Affordable Care Act provided them with more than 20 million more paying customers offers a window into the debate over winners and losers surrounding this year’s efforts to replace the ACA. It also puts a sharper focus on the role played by the nation’s teaching hospitals – storied international institutions that have grown and flowered under the ACA, while sometimes neglecting the needy neighborhoods that surround them.
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Twenty-three years ago, President Bill Clinton and Senate Democrats canceled two weeks of the August recess to pass a major health care bill. They got nowhere.
Now Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is trying the same thing with the GOP for the August break, and it may lead to the same result.
“I’m hoping for better this time,” said Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) on Tuesday afternoon after saying earlier he was “very pessimistic” the GOP would succeed. In 1994, Democrats “kept us in and we didn’t accomplish anything.”
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Senate Republicans and the White House have agreed to add at least $45 billion to their Obamacare repeal bill to address the opioid crisis and are near agreement on allowing consumers to use Health Savings Account money to pay for their premiums, according to people familiar with the matter.
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Senate Democrats are escalating their attack on Republicans’ plans to repeal Obamacare this week, though their party remains divided on how far to take activists’ demands that they shut down the Senate in protest of the GOP’s dismantling of the Affordable Care Act.
Democratic senators are planning to hold the Senate floor until at least midnight on Monday to thrash Senate Republicans for refusing to hold committee hearings on their healthcare overhaul, according to several people familiar with the plan. The round of speeches is being organized by Sens. Patty Murray of Washington state and Brian Schatz of Hawaii.
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The House-passed Obamacare repeal bill would leave 12.6 million more Americans uninsured over the next decade and reduce federal spending by $328 billion, according to an analysis released today by CMS’ Office of the Actuary.
The coverage estimate is well below the 23 million more uninsured that the CBO has projected under the American Health Care Act. The congressional scorekeeper additionally estimated that the American Health Care Act would reduce spending by only $119 billion over a decade.
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Sen. Bill Cassidy got cheers on late-night television for calling for an Obamacare replacement plan that would pass what he calls “the Jimmy Kimmel test” — that is, cover children like the comedian’s son recently born with a congenital heart defect.
To hear him tell it, he’s the one in Congress fighting to keep President Donald Trump’s promises to his base. On the campaign trail, Cassidy argues that Trump consistently promised a health care plan that would reduce premiums, eliminate mandates, ensure continuous coverage and protect people with pre-existing conditions. Any GOP plan, he says, needs to meet that bar.
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