OBAMA/TRUMPCARE MEGATHREAD

[StrangeSox]

Sahil Kapur ✔ @sahilkapur

Wow: Obamacare approval surges to 55% in favor, 41% against amid Republican repeal efforts, per new Gallup poll.

3:14 PM - 4 Apr 2017

[Soxbadger]

Don't know what you got till it's gone

Don't know what it is I did so wrong

Now I know what I got

It's just this song

And it ain't easy to get back

Takes so long

 

[StrangeSox]

Pence's Obamacare diplomacy fails to yield a deal

Conservatives and moderates say they heard two different things from the White House.

The White House’s latest last-ditch effort to save the GOP’s Obamacare replacement bill hit a brick wall Tuesday night, as conservative and moderate Republicans met and realized they had two very different understandings of the changes sought by top Trump officials.

 

Conservatives in the House Freedom Caucus say Vice President Mike Pence, chief of staff Reince Priebus and budget director Mick Mulvaney sought to win their votes by offering a repeal of major Obamacare regulations during a Monday night meeting. But moderates who met with the same Trump officials hours before were told the changes wouldn’t be as far-reaching.

 

They don't know how to govern.

 

[caulfield12]

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/these-2-char...TVfMQRzZWMDc3I-

 

These 2 charts show just how close we are to healthcare collapse

 

 

The second chart is impossible to refute...we're not getting much more than minimal life expectancy increases (2 years over the span of the last 15, 2000-2014) compared to the rest of the industrialized world (we're now 2-5 years behind everyone else) while our costs are 33% higher than Switzerland and 50% higher than Norway.

 

The difference in cost-effectiveness is even more striking when compared to Japan, Australia, France, the UK, Finland, Canada, Luxembourg, etc.

Edited April 6, 2017 by caulfield12

[CrimsonWeltall]

The second chart is impossible to refute...we're not getting much more than minimal life expectancy increases (2 years over the span of the last 15, 2000-2014) compared to the rest of the industrialized world (we're now 2-5 years behind everyone else) while our costs are 33% higher than Switzerland and 50% higher than Norway.

 

The difference in cost-effectiveness is even more striking when compared to Japan, Australia, France, the UK, Finland, Canada, Luxembourg, etc.

 

How do we determine how much of it is due to healthcare systems and how much is due to citizenry not taking care of themselves (ie Americans being crazy obese)?

[StrangeSox]

Trump threatens to withhold payments to health providers in order to force Democrats to the table

 

https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-threaten...29844?mod=e2twp

[StrangeSox]

Age group most opposed to single payer are those that already have it.

 

[StrangeSox]

They're attempting to revive AHCA/Obamacare repeal and get the thing to a vote before Trump hits 100 Days.

 

https://twitter.com/costareports/status/855087222214799360

 

The GOP has a new plan to destroy Obamacare. It’s even crueler than the last one.

House Republicans have been hinting they may introduce a new plan to replace Obamacare before the 100th day of the Trump presidency. Naturally, giving President Trump something to arbitrarily tout as an achievement (even if it passes the House, the Senate looms) in advance of the arbitrary 100-day mark is far more important than the human toll the proposal would have on millions.

 

Now Republicans are indeed set to introduce the new plan, multiple reports tell us. And judging by a new study set to be released today, it is even crueler than the last GOP plan: The study finds premiums would likely soar for the sick, probably pushing them off coverage.

In effect, the waiver on preexisting conditions is designed to make conservatives happy, while giving moderates high-risk pools that allow them to argue it wouldn’t harm people with preexisting conditions. The restoration of EHBs is designed to make moderates happy, while telling conservatives states could still get out from under them.

 

But the waiver on prohibitions against jacking up premiums for people with preexisting conditions — which is called “community rating” — is a major problem. It would smack them with far more in costs — potentially pushing them off coverage entirely.

 

Indeed, the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation’s Larry Levitt tells me he thinks the CAP projections are plausible. “These figures show why a guarantee of coverage without community rating offers essentially no protection for people with pre-existing conditions,” Levitt says. “No insurance company will want to cover people with expensive health conditions if they don’t have to, so they will set premiums to make sure the coverage is out of reach. Health care costs are highly concentrated among a small number of people who are sick, and they would find it impossible to get affordable coverage.”

 

 

 

 

[bmags]

I think there's no chance it goes to a vote (I think they just wanted a new cycle), and no chance it passes house after the recent special elections.

[StrangeSox]

But why? Almost everyone hated the AHCA the last time around.

[bmags]

But why? Almost everyone hated the AHCA the last time around.

 

Because it doesn't matter if it passes, it just matters that Trump can claim a victory for his first 100 days. He knows people will remember the claiming victory more than the actual change. He wants people to feel like he's kept promises even if he hasn't. I'd say there is no long game there, but his manipulation of the shortgame has worked pretty well so far.

 

edit: this is psychoanalysis I used to only reserve for Lebron James.

[StrangeSox]

That's good for Trump, but that seems really, really bad for a whole lot of House Republicans who aren't necessarily in the safest districts that would be forced to vote for it.

[bmags]

That's good for Trump, but that seems really, really bad for a whole lot of House Republicans who aren't necessarily in the safest districts that would be forced to vote for it.

 

Which is why I don't see a vote even happening, or it not passing. A whole lotta vulnerable republicans can campaign on being straight shooters who voted against the Presidents health care bill.

[caulfield12]

The AHCA had 17% approval numbers...before it was gutted.

 

ObamaCare ranged in the mid 40's. No way they have a public vote that ends in another Trump repudiation.

[caulfield12]

http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/polit...are-compromise/

 

House Republicans have a "new" plan to make your healthcare even worse

 

 

In exchange for that conservative concession (opting out of "community rating," which would wipe out the protections for preexisting conditions), the amendment would reinstate the Essential Health Benefits that were already taken out of the bill ― though, again, states could waive those provisions as well if they were able to show that doing so would lower premiums, increase the number of people insured, or "advance another benefit to the public interest in the state."

 

Gee, I wonder what, say, Scott Walker or Rick Scott will make of that.

 

In short, in order to pass a bill that failed because it was too harsh and people hated it, the House is proposing a bill that is even harsher and that more people will hate even more. But, once again, to treat this proposal as an actual healthcare proposal is to make the same mistake all over again.

 

The previous dead fish was actually a tax-cut bill. This one is designed to give the president* something—anything!—he can call a "win." It doesn't matter that this latest attempt has no chance of becoming law; there is no chance of its ever passing the Senate. Give the president* a win. Give him something he can call a win. Give him something that they will call a win on his favorite television programs. Thus is the entire business of the American republic reduced to the late Kim Jong-il's golf score (38 under par 34, including 5 aces, look it up!!!).

 

The next general congressional recess is right around Memorial Day. Start lining up for those town halls today. Avoid the rush.

Edited April 21, 2017 by caulfield12

[caulfield12]

Here we go again.

 

AHCA back alive with McArthur Amendment....House Freedom Caucus is supporting, which means it's now up to the moderate Tuesday Group.

 

Need at least 22 votes from the GOP to kill it.

 

Undoubtedly, it would die a slow death in the US Senate without changes that are almost impossible to imagine, as the House bill is going further and further to the right, whereas to pass the Senate they'd need to tack WAY back to the left side of the spectrum again.

Edited April 27, 2017 by caulfield12

[StrangeSox]

https://twitter.com/BraddJaffy/status/857566011138211840

 

 

Bradd Jaffy‏ @BraddJaffy

 

As you read these 2 sentences, keep in mind they're about a bill that affects the health care of millions of people (link: http://politi.co/2qb2px9) politi.co/2qb2px9

 

 

[StrangeSox]

NYT write-up on an Urban-Brookings review of the Republican health care plan

 

An average family making more than $200,000 a year would gain $5,640 while a family making less than $10,000 a year would lose $1,420 if Congress passes the health care plan proposed by House Republicans, according to a new analysis.

Taxes would decrease for families earning $50,000 or more a year in 2022, when most of the law's provisions would be in full effect. Families with incomes above $1 million a year would pay about $50,000 less in taxes.

 

The cuts to Medicaid would hit the poorest families hard. Even though some would be able to take advantage of new subsidies to buy health insurance, the researchers found that, on average, their benefits would decline substantially. Those making less than $30,000 a year would take three-quarters of the total losses.

More than 70 percent of the tax cuts, however, would go to families with incomes above $200,000 a year, and more than 46 percent would go to those making more than $1 million a year.

 

How the Rich Gain and the Poor Lose Under the Republican Health Care Plan

 

Edited April 27, 2017 by StrangeSox

[StrangeSox]

[bmags]

Republican senators have to be so happy the house and WH are too incompetent to share the burden on them.

 

 

[StrangeSox]

What the AHCA means for people with pre-existing conditions:

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/04/upshot/f...conditions.html

 

Technically, the deal would still prevent insurers from denying coverage to people with a history of illness. But without community rating, health plans would be free to charge those patients as much as they wanted. If both of the Obamacare provisions went away, the hypothetical cancer patient might be able to buy only a plan, without chemotherapy coverage, that costs many times more than a similar plan costs a healthy customer. Only cancer patients with extraordinary financial resources and little interest in the fine print would be likely to sign up. Under the amendment, customers would be subject to community rating only if they’d had a lapse in coverage of more than 63 days, but, in practice, the change is likely to result in nearly everyone paying a price based on their health status, as Matt Fiedler, a fellow at the Brookings Institution and a former Obama administration official, has written.

 

[StrangeSox]

A nice representation of how badly this bill screws people with pre existing conditions.

 

 

Maintains Medicaid cuts and tax cuts for the wealthy too.

[bmags]

This bill is brutal, worse than the first, but they learned their lesson not to wait for the CBO. This is almost astonishingly cynical.

[caulfield12]

The worst part is they're more concerned with 1) getting any "win" and punting it to the Senate to prevent getting pilloried again next week in their districts, and 2) keeping the reconciliation opportunities alive to jam the tax reform through with just 50+1 votes rather than 60.

 

They don't want to get "held hostage" by the Dems again (budget deal), so they're going to do almost ANYTHING to avoid it.

 

In that sense, it doesn't matter if 60%+ of people believe or perceive the economy's doing well when they start seeing the real financial consequences of this bill and the tax reform that won't benefit them in any tangible form.

 

 

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/03/h...eal-bill-237949

 

If an additional $8 billion is actually convincing when they're going to be $200+ billion on the downside in terms of subsidizing those with pre-existing conditions, God help the country. Thankfully, there's the much more reasonable US Senate to still block the way, with the likes of Rand Paul still opposing the House bill after all the changes.

Edited May 4, 2017 by caulfield12

[StrangeSox]

This bill is brutal, worse than the first, but they learned their lesson not to wait for the CBO. This is almost astonishingly cynical.

 

I think it'll get a CBO score before the Senate gets a hold of it though.