Obama on Senate bill: It’s ‘not a health care bill’

The bill would provide less-generous tax credits to help people buy insurance and let states get waivers to ignore some coverage standards that “Obamacare” requires of insurers.

Senate Republican leadership released their highly anticipated health care bill this week, but as of now, there’s a lot of uncertainty over whether it will pass the Senate.

The legislation cuts taxes, cuts spending, and allows states to engage in some modest deregulation of health-care markets.

Appealing to Congress and the USA people, Mr Obama said the 142-page plan had a “fundamental meanness” at its core and was “not a healthcare bill”.

An analysis of the bill by the Congressional Budget Office, highlighting its expected costs and effectiveness, is expected early next week.

“Virginia has been a prudent steward of Medicaid funding and should not be penalized for making a policy decision to not expand Medicaid”, state legislative money committee chairmen wrote this week in a letter to U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and others. The score for the House bill projected that 23 million people would lose their insurance, whilst cutting the federal deficit by $119bn over a decade. For example, he said, both bills would phase out the expansion of Medicaid eligibility, but the Senate bill would do it more slowly.

The draft bill comes nearly two months after the House passed its own measure.

Shortly after the 142-page bill was distributed, more than a half-dozen GOP lawmakers signaled concerns or initial opposition.

A health insurance industry trade group says it’s encouraged by provisions of the Senate GOP health care bill, but stopped short of voicing support.

Rand Paul, who has rejected the plan along with fellow Republican Senators Ted Cruz, Mike Lee and Ron Johnson, said fundamental problems remained that would leave taxpayers subsidising health insurance companies. Most people who use Medicaid are pretty thrilled with it because, in a shocking turn of events, people really enjoy having affordable effective health insurance.

“And so if you say the federal government’s going to pay for it, it’s very easy, because the federal government has a printing press, you know, down at the Federal Reserve – they’ll just crank out, we’ll add to our debt”.

Remember what Trump promised the American people.

Jane McNichol, an organizer of the Protect Our Care CT campaign, holds up a clothesline with photos of Connecticut residents opposed to repeal of the Affordable Care Act, during a rally on the state Capitol steps, Thursday, June 22, 2017, in Hartford, Conn.