U.S. Senate Republicans unveil Obamacare replacement bill, fate uncertain

[webfact]

U.S. Senate Republicans unveil Obamacare replacement bill, fate uncertain

By Richard Cowan and Susan Cornwell

 

FILE PHOTO: An emergency sign points to the entrance to Scripps Memorial Hospital in La Jolla, California, U.S. March 23, 2017. REUTERS/Mike Blake/File Photo

 

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Senate leaders on Thursday unveiled a draft of legislation to replace Obamacare, proposing to kill a tax on the wealthy that pays for it and reduce aid to the poor to cut costs.

 

The draft bill's fate was immediately thrown into question, however, by a statement from Senator Rand Paul and three other conservative Republicans, who said they were "not ready to vote" for it. Democrats need the support of only three Republicans to quash the measure in the Republican-led chamber.

 

The emergence of four Senate sceptics underscored the difficulty for Republicans of steering the legislation down a narrow path to passage. Democrats already deeply oppose Republican attempts to overhaul former President Barack Obama's signature healthcare law.

 

The 142-page proposal, worked out in secret by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell with other Republican leaders, was welcomed by President Donald Trump. Despite celebrating its passage at the time, the president later privately bashed as "mean" a version approved last month in the Republican-led House of Representatives, according to congressional sources.

 

Trump, who said on Wednesday he wanted a health plan "with heart," told reporters at the White House that healthcare legislation would require "a little negotiation, but it's going to be very good." He said he doubted Democrats would help.

 

Reaction to the proposal ranged from lukewarm to outright derision.

 

Republican Senator John McCain said he would check with his constituents in his home state of Arizona.

 

“I expect there’s going to be a number of changes between now and the final vote,” said Senator John Barrasso.

 

Obamacare, formally known as the Affordable Care Act, is credited with expanding health insurance to millions of Americans since its passage in 2010. Republicans say it costs too much and involves the federal government too much in healthcare. Trump made Obamacare repeal a centrepiece of his 2016 election campaign.

 

Democrats accuse Republicans of sabotaging Obamacare, and say the Republican bill will make healthcare unaffordable for poorer Americans while cutting taxes for the wealthy.

 

MEDICAID EXPANSION PHASE-OUT

 

The Senate's draft bill proposes repealing the 3.8 percent net investment income tax on high earners retroactively to the start of 2017. The tax, which affects high-income Americans and was imposed to help pay for Obamacare, has been a key target for Republicans.

 

The Senate bill maintains much of the structure of the House bill, but differs in several key ways.

 

It would phase out Obamacare’s expansion of the Medicaid program for the poor and disabled over three years, from 2021 to 2024, and then enact deeper cuts in the program than the House version, beginning in 2025. It would also allow states to add work requirements for some Medicaid enrollees.

 

The legislation also reshapes subsidies to low-income people for private insurance. The subsidies will be linked to recipients' income in the Senate bill, a "major improvement" from a measure approved last month by the House that tied them solely to age, Republican Senator Susan Collins said.

 

"The current bill does not repeal Obamacare," Paul said. "It does not keep our promises to the American people. I will oppose it coming to the floor in its current form, but I remain open to negotiations."

 

Democratic leaders of Congress, who want the Obamacare law fixed but not abandoned, immediately attacked Senate Republicans' version.

 

"The president said the House bill was mean," said Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer. "The Senate bill may be even meaner."

 

McConnell said Democrats chose not to help frame the bill.

 

"I regret that our Democratic friends made clear early on that they did not want to work with us in a serious, bipartisan way to address the Obamacare status quo. But Republicans believe we have a responsibility to act, and we are," McConnell said.

 

Like the House bill, the Senate would repeal a penalty associated with the individual mandate requiring most people to have health insurance or else pay a fine. Policy experts said that would keep more young, healthy people out of the market and likely create a sicker patient pool.

 

The legislation would also repeal the penalty associated with the employer mandate that they provide employees health insurance.

 

The Senate bill would provide money to stabilise the individual insurance market, allotting $15 billion a year in 2018 and 2019 and $10 billion a year in 2020 and 2021.

 

The Senate bill proposes defunding Planned Parenthood for a year, but abortion-related restrictions are less stringent than the House version. There is uncertainty over whether abortion-related provisions will meet Senate rules, but those provisions could be included in another Senate bill.

 

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has estimated that the House bill would kick 23 million people off their healthcare plans. The CBO is expected to weigh in on the Senate draft bill early next week.

 

As lawmakers made speeches about the legislation on the Senate floor, a protest erupted outside McConnell's personal office, with many people in wheelchairs blocking a hallway, holding signs and chanting: "No cuts to Medicaid." U.S. Capitol Police said 43 protesters were arrested and charged with obstruction.

 

McConnell may have a tough job convincing enough Republican senators that the Senate bill improves on the House version. A Reuters/Ipsos poll this month found nearly 60 percent of adults believed the House bill would make insurance costlier for low-income Americans and people with pre-existing conditions. Only 13 percent said it would improve the quality of healthcare.

 

HOSPITAL STOCKS SURGE

 

U.S. hospital stocks were trading sharply higher after the bill was released. HCA Healthcare Inc <HCA.N> rose 3.2 percent, while Tenet Healthcare Corp <THC.N> surged 6.8 percent.

 

Health insurers were also trading broadly higher with large players Aetna <AET.N> and UnitedHealth Group <UNH.N> each up about 1 percent. Insurers that specialise in Medicaid were also gaining, with Centene <CNC.N> up 3.5 percent and Molina Healthcare <MOH.N> rising 3.2 percent.

 

The overall S&P 500 healthcare sector <.SPXHC> was up 1.5 percent and hit an all-time high.

 

The healthcare sector has surged this week, fuelled by biotechnology stocks.

 

“Hospital stocks are up on this news today," Mizuho Securities' director of research, Sheryl Skolnick, said in a research note. "They should be, in our view, as the near-term risks would be abated if the subsidy and Medicaid provisions hold through Senate and House negotiations.”

 

(Additional reporting by Yasmeen Abutaleb, Caroline Humer and Lewis Krauskopf; Writing by Steve Holland; Editing by Jonathan Oatis and Peter Cooney)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2017-06-23

[Jingthing]

Not great. 
 

President Obama --

Quote

"The Senate bill, unveiled today, is not a health care bill," he wrote in a Facebook post. "It’s a massive transfer of wealth from middle-class and poor families to the richest people in America."

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2017/06/22/senate-health-care-bill-criticized-former-president-barack-obama/421072001/

[darksidedog]

More bad legislation. Trump promised not to slash Medicaid, but this does precisely that. This will not make healthcare more affordable, but it will make the rich, richer. When, one has to ask, will the Trumpites recognise they have been sold down the river?

[JAG]

More bad legislation. Trump promised not to slash Medicaid, but this does precisely that. This will not make healthcare more affordable, but it will make the rich, richer. When, one has to ask, will the Trumpites recognise they have been sold down the river?

When they wake up one day and discover that despite living in the worlds largest economy they cannot afford or access any healthcare.
However the wealthy guy down the road has had his tax bill reduced, and hospital stocks ate on the up...

Well worth the cost if it means trashing the achievements of that d*mned n*gg*r "president" and his uppity wife!

And that is what is really driving it isn't it? - Obamha really should never have taken the piss out of Trump at that dinner...

[abrahamzvi]

4 hours ago, JAG said:

When they wake up one day and discover that despite living in the worlds largest economy they cannot afford or access any healthcare.
However the wealthy guy down the road has had his tax bill reduced, and hospital stocks ate on the up...

Well worth the cost if it means trashing the achievements of that d*mned n*gg*r "president" and his uppity wife!

And that is what is really driving it isn't it? - Obamha really should never have taken the piss out of Trump at that dinner...

The people who voted for Tump are getting what they voted for and what they deserve!

[ilostmypassword]

Trump called the House version of the AHCA, "mean". Supposedly the Senate was going to try and go some way towards fixing that. Instead, it turns out that, on balance, their version is substantially meaner.

http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2017/06/the_senate_health_care_bill_really_is_meaner.html

[Thaidream]

healthcare is a human right-except in America apparently. Absolute madness to propose a Health Bill that is indeed worse than Obamacare which in itself was not the best bill possible. How can a Nation as wealthy as the United States not provide universal healthcare for its people.  The answer is simple- those in power refuse to take the power away from for profit hospitals; big Pharma; wealthy insurance companies and give it back to the people of the US. Every industrialized country in the World provides healthcare as a right to its people- even Thailand.

The Trump budget is a disaster for the American people- and his healthcare bill will force millions off the healthcare rolls.  It will take money from the poor so Trump can build a useless border wall; increase military spending by 54 Billion and send more troops to Afghanistan and Syria.

Good Lord- when will Americans wake up to this and Vote smart.

[Jingthing]

It's almost funny if it wasn't so tragic. 

What idiocy is in the American DNA that can't see what almost all other more developed nations realized long, long ago? That some kind of nationalized health care program where costs are controlled is the only rational solution. The USA has that for the old in Medicare, but this trumpcare crapola seems designed to kill off as many sick and older people BEFORE they reach Medicare age. 

[Jingthing]

trumpcare equals Blood Money.

Blood of the poor/sick for money for the already rich.

 

 

[ilostmypassword]

11 hours ago, darksidedog said:

More bad legislation. Trump promised not to slash Medicaid, but this does precisely that. This will not make healthcare more affordable, but it will make the rich, richer. When, one has to ask, will the Trumpites recognise they have been sold down the river?

There's this sort of fable that the Russians tell against themselves. In it, God appears to a farmer and says, I'll give you whatever you ask for, but I'm going to give twice as much to your neighbor. The farmer thinks it over for a while and finally says to God, "Make me blind in one eye." 

For the Trump supporters in places like West Virginia who benefit massively from Medicaid the story should be modified as follows. God appears to them and offers to give them twice as much as the liberals. These Trump supporters say to God, "Blind us in both eyes."

Such is the power of schadenfreude.

[YetAnother]

Obamacare was a travesty;

I now have to file my USA income taxes every year just to avoid an Obamacare penalty even though I have not stepped into the United States for a decade;

That is implementing a social policy that does not apply to us,

that means the expats,

through the tax code

[ilostmypassword]

4 minutes ago, YetAnother said:

Obamacare was a travesty;

I now have to file my USA income taxes every year just to avoid an Obamacare penalty even though I have not stepped into the United States for a decade;

That is implementing a social policy that does not apply to us,

that means the expats,

through the tax code

Even if you are an expat you are still required to post your tax returns. For obvious reasons, the IRS has in interest in keeping track of citizens' whereabouts.

And even if you were correct, that would be a pretty feeble reason to call Obamacarae a travesty. Unless you are a believer in the it's-all-about-me school of policy.

[Jingthing]

Obamacare was a travesty;

I now have to file my USA income taxes every year just to avoid an Obamacare penalty even though I have not stepped into the United States for a decade;

That is implementing a social policy that does not apply to us,

that means the expats,

through the tax code

If you're talking about lifetime expats and looking at it from only that narrow issue then you are correct the end of the mandate would be a plus.

But most Americans aren't expats and most American expats aren't expats for life.

 

 

[Jingthing]

Overall a very bad bill.

Except for the rich.

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/senate-republicans-obamacare-replacement-is-bad-for-americas-health/2017/06/22/36fa87e6-5789-11e7-b38e-35fd8e0c288f_story.html

 

Sure its class warfare and the rich won that war long ago.

 

But trumpcare would be rubbing that in.

 

 

 

[Jingthing]

Especially bad for older people under 65.

 

http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2017/06/22/the_senate_health_care_bill_is_brutal_on_older_americans.html

 

 

"America Is a Tough Place for Older People. The GOP Health Care Plan Will Make It Much Worse.

...

Asking older people to pay so much for health care is particularly devastating given the ongoing structural changes in our economy. 

...

 

 Now, the best way to avoid paying a large chunk of your income and savings for insurance for a few years until Medicare kicks in at 65 is to keep a payroll job with health insurance. But increasingly, American employers don’t want to keep people in their 50s on their payrolls. "

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Ulic]

Healthcare stocks surged with Obama Care and surge again with Trump Care. Increased profits for the healthcare companies is not good news for the American people. Someone has to pay for it. Joining the modern western world with a universal single payer system is the solution but there are none so blind as those who will not see.

[ilostmypassword]

12 minutes ago, Ulic said:

Healthcare stocks surged with Obama Care and surge again with Trump Care. Increased profits for the healthcare companies is not good news for the American people. Someone has to pay for it. Joining the modern western world with a universal single payer system is the solution but there are none so blind as those who will not see.

Actually, many countries in the world manage to provide good health care to their citizens by using private insurance. Of course, the insurance companies are tightly regulated and must provide coverage at an affordable price. For those citizens who can't pay the full premium there is government support. And everybody has to buy insurance. So it's a stronger version of Obamacare. And the prices paid for pharmaceuticals are much more tightly controlled.

[connda]

Another social welfare bill for the hospital and insurance companies no doubt.  The citizenry?  No so much.

[Jingthing]

Lies.

Lies.

More lies.

 

And this crapola trumpcare bill may indeed pass.

 

Quote

 

The GOP’s big lies about health care

To succeed in gutting health coverage for millions of Americans, Senate Republican leaders need to get a series of lies accepted as truth. Journalists and other neutral arbiters must resist the temptation to report these lies as just a point of view. A lie is a lie.

 

 

http://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/article/The-GOP-s-big-lies-about-health-care-11245171.php