Trump scrambles for GOP health votes; budget score looms

The Senate Republicans’ healthcare plan would leave 22 million more people uninsured by 2026 than under Obamacare, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has predicted.

Cost-sharing reduction payments help cover expenses like deductibles for people with modest incomes.

The bill, drafted behind closed doors by a small group of senators and staff members, would eliminate health insurance mandates; slash funding for Medicaid, a program that covers tens of millions of poor and working-class Americans; scale back premium subsidies for people who purchase individual policies and deliver substantial tax cuts to the wealthy, pharmaceutical companies and makers of medical devices.

The House approved its legislation in May.

Republicans have targeted Obamacare since it was passed in 2010, viewing it as costly government intrusion and saying that individual insurance markets are collapsing.

Senate Minority leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., criticized Republicans for penalizing people who might have had coverage gaps because of losing a job or temporary financial problems.

The conservative quartet said they oppose the initial version, which will be subject to a slew of amendments during floor proceedings, for “a variety of reasons” but declared themselves “open to negotiation and obtaining more information before it is brought to the floor”.

It would also phase out extra federal money that law is providing to 31 states to expand Medicaid to additional low-income earners. “And it’s certainly better for the state and the federal taxpayer”.

But in another blow to the bill, the American Medical Association (AMA), the country’s largest association of physicians, announced that it opposed the legislation. Debate should begin as early as Tuesday. Obviously, those on the other side of the aisle see it as a drastic change over the Affordable Care Act, but some in the Republican party are also upset.

None of the dissident senators have ruled out supporting the legislation if it is revised. Those are all of the secret keys to a market that actually works for health care and works for patients, that’s the key. “That’s the kind of thing we’re trying to fix”.

The White House says the CBO “has consistently proven it can not accurately predict how health-care legislation will impact insurance coverage”. Price said that Obamacare’s “penalties go away” in the Senate legislation, adding, “There are 6.5 million folks who are paying $3 billion for the privilege of not purchasing that coverage”. By Friday afternoon, he was facing public statements of opposition from five GOP senators – three more defections than he can afford and still win approval for the legislation over united Democratic opposition. But she said it would be “extremely difficult” for the White House to be able to find a narrow path to attract both conservatives and moderates. Heller faces a competitive re-election race next year. So Monday’s CBO report may not reflect the actual bill that senators will eventually vote on.

A Congressional Budget Office analysis of the US House measure predicts an additional 23 million people over the next decade would have no health care coverage, and recent polling shows only around one in four Americans views the bill favorably.

The GOP president also, as he frequently does, labeled Democrats as “obstructionists”, and offered some free political advice. All they do is delay and complain.

He said they had “at best, a 50-50 chance”.

Those two – plus fellow conservatives Mike Lee of Utah and Ted Cruz of Texas – have said the current measure doesn’t do enough to erase Obama’s law and reduce premiums. “There are things in this bill which adversely affect my state that are peculiar to my state, a couple of things I’m concerned about”, Cassidy said.