Exactly Zero Female Senators Are Working On The Healthcare Bill

The US Senate likely will revise the bill, but 217 House Republicans voted yes.

After addressing the American Health Care Act passing through the House on Thursday, Stephen Colbert returned to the topic on Friday’s Late Show, beginning with a subtle jab at President Trump losing the popular vote to Hillary Clinton.

“Everybody into the lifeboats, boys”.

Democrats have claimed that the new bill will doom Republicans in the next election cycle, but White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus dismissed any and all naysayers.

The next step is a vote in the Senate, an activity that will test the metal of the Republican Party, since the GOP has a tenuous 52/50 hold on the Senate, and a handful of defectors could tank the bill.

Millions of Americans – including some Athens County residents – could lose health coverage after the U.S. House of Representatives passed a Republican-sponsored health care bill, the American Health Care Act, on Thursday. They had delivered on their end of the promise to repeal and replace, which to them became the modern equivalent of “Give me liberty or give me death”.

Frankly, I’m not one of those who gets upset about members of Congress not reading the bill because I’m convinced that, even if they read it, they would need it explained to them.

But the political battle over health-care reform is hardly over. In order to keep the gears of Capitol Hill turning, the generous interpretation goes, House Speaker Paul Ryan had to move some sort of Obamacare replacement up to the Senate, where it is sure to be rewritten.

“So it is a huge tax cut for guys like me”. Meanwhile, because the act eliminates the penalty for not having coverage, insurers announce that they’re canceling plans or sharply raising premiums for 2018 out of fear that more healthy people will opt not to get insurance, leaving plans overloaded by sick people who are more expensive to cover.

Don Stewart, a senior aide to McConnell, said critics were getting “hung up on process” while ignoring the problems of Obamacare such as higher costs and limited choices. But the underlying message remains: If the ACA’s protections for people with pre-existing conditions are scrapped in the GOP’s health bill, sick people in the individual market will pay much, much more for health insurance.

In effect, Paul Ryan is picking winners and losers.

But that is not what seemed to matter to the people at what actually looked like a country club convention.

“What they said was, ‘We will provide some additional funding to the states, very generous funding – $130 billion to the states”.

Like what you see? Even though they were charged far higher rates, up to double the amount paid by consumers with no serious ailments, care for these patients is so expensive that government money was needed to fund the programs. I do know the revised bill is an improvement over the first attempt. It would dilute consumer-friendly insurance coverage requirements, like prohibiting higher premiums for customers with pre-existing medical conditions.

That significant cut to Medicaid that impacts special education students also has an immediate impact on poor people as a whole. It’s kind of like waiting until your house is on fire to then buy your homeowner’s insurance.

Other than that, though?