Improve the ACA, don’t repeal or replace the law

Democrats have invented a host of reasons why it polls so terribly, including that people just do not realize Obamacare is the Affordable Care Act. HHS Secretary Tom Price appeared on “Meet the Press” yesterday and told NBC News’ Chuck Todd, “We believe, I believe and the president believes firmly that if you create a system that’s accessible for everybody and you provide the financial feasibility for everybody to get coverage, that we have a great opportunity to increase coverage over where we are right now”. And it’s certainly not about preventing people from dying in the streets.

President Donald Trump is threatening to support primary candidates of any Republican congressman who doesn’t sign off on the GOP’s health care replacement plan.

Obamacare also paved the way in Indiana for the Healthy Indiana Plan and HIP 2.0, which have proved beneficial to hundreds of thousands of Hoosiers. It is more like they didn’t plan on 20 million Americans gaining coverage and using it. I urge our senators and congressmen to reject the American Health Care Act bill, showing that you stand for the needs of all of us, your constituents. Like Obamacare, however, the Republican bill allows children to stay on a parent’s insurance until they reach age 26 and prevents insurers from denying coverage to people with pre-existing medical conditions.

Given the significant tax breaks for the wealthy, new exemptions for large insurance companies, likely reductions in insurance coverage, and the cuts to Medicaid funding-combined with the fact that it is now labeled “Trumpcare” – there is very little to no chance of Democrats supporting the plan, Mahaffee said. “What we are trying to achieve here is bringing down the cost of care, bringing down the cost of insurance not through government mandates and monopolies but by having more choice in competition”.

Oh, and the Medicare trust fund would be exhausted by 2024, according to Brookings Institution researchers. This would reduce the number of people with insurance (especially young people) and since costs are higher for those who are older, the average cost of insurance will go up.

The haste to see a bill sent to President Trump by early April has reforms being made without clear hearings to gather input from insurers, hospital groups or even individual citizens.

Repealing these would cost $275 billion during the next decade.

Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., spoke to reporters after the committee he chairs passed a health care bill.

“It is a complicated issue”, she said, “but we need to do something to make sure that our families are getting the proper care they need”.

Why? Under normal circumstances, Democrats would nearly certainly filibuster the coming tax overhaul, preventing it from ever getting to a vote.

Under existing law, the Cadillac tax is due to take effect in 2020.

We begin with the Trumpian promises, which you can always discount, or maybe you still think Mexico will pay for the border wall. One useful tool is to change existing law – that is, to move the goalposts. For one, the new provision would allow insurance companies to collect the fees, while Obamacare’s penalty went to the government. “In addition to these popular reforms, the current bill keeps numerous ACA’s more technical changes to other parts of the health care system, such as reforms to Medicare”.