John Oliver slams Republican opposition to Obamacare: ‘The clock is ticking’

“Don’t repeal the Affordable Care Act and replace it with a threadbare health insurance plan that puts insurance companies back in charge”.

“Now, Republicans are retroactively applying those caveats to Mr. Trump’s promises, saying the president understands that programs like Social Security and Medicare must be maintained for Americans who are currently receiving benefits but must be changed for younger Americans who may have to work longer before retiring and getting benefits”. Constituents repeatedly questioned what they were going to with the Affordable Care Act, including a popular provision that blocks insurers from denying coverage to people with preexisting health conditions. And they will come begging us to come do something.

“For months, President Trump and the GOP-led Congress have left patients, hospitals, behavioral health providers, and local economies in crippling uncertainty”, Kennedy said. Lawmakers return to Washington Monday after a week of raucous town halls in their districts that amplified pressure on Republicans to forge ahead with their health-care plans. “So you have to remember that”.

“So we’re looking at every possible way to do exactly that: repeal a awful, failed system and replace with something better”, Sarah Huckabee Sanders told ABC’s “This Week”.

Trump met later Monday morning with health insurance executives, some of whom are anxious that the uncertainty over the health care law’s future is spilling into the marketplace. Already, the state of North Carolina is one of 16 states to file legal actions against the Trump administration over the White House executive order to curb refugee admissions and prohibit some travel to the USA from seven Muslim-majority countries. This would keep premiums low for people outside the pools, but the federal government would need to spend $178.1 billion to ensure premiums didn’t rise too much in the high-risk pools. Similar disagreements among Republican governors are reportedly preventing the Republican Governors’ Association from reaching a consensus on Medicaid.

Democrats and proponents of the law also sought to step up their efforts. They are betting different groups of Republican lawmakers can be pacified with a handful of concessions, then will swallow hard and vote for a longstanding repeal pledge, first in the House, then in the Senate.

The White House on Sunday refused to say whether Trump would guarantee that the 7.7 million of Americans now enrolled in Obamacare would continue to have coverage under a Republican substitute plan. Someone has a stroke every 40 seconds.

The replacement of Obamacare has to happen before the budget and tax reform.

Health-care reform is extremely complicated even under the best of circumstances.