Georgia Republicans anxious about parts of health care bill

Georgia didn’t expand Medicaid coverage under President Barack Obama’s health care law and the group worries that GOP leaders’ replacement will ultimately punish the state.

This new plan gives tax credits to families who will no longer qualify for Medicaid. “It really comes down to a binary choice”.

The House GOP, in a written statement, cloaked this plan with a bodyguard of outright deceit.

No changes: Kids can stay on parents’ plan til age 26; pre-existing conditions are covered; no annual or lifetime coverage caps; certain Obamacare benefits retained. But consumers who have not maintained continuous insurance coverage face a 30 percent premium penalty for a year.

Democrats moved with more information than Republicans have now, but also with less than you’d want for a legislature overhauling the American health care system. In fact, the overall effect of the legislation is massively regressive, relative to the baseline established by Obamacare. They hope to pass the measure – which eliminates Obamacare’s individual mandate and offers a series of tax credits in place of subsidies to help people buy insurance – through the House by the end of the month. Only people earning more than $70,000 a year would come out ahead, The Times reported. Medicaid is the second largest expenditure by the state after we pay for our educational systems.

The Ways and Means approval inched the bill closer toward consideration on the House floor, by which time Republicans also expect they will have a Congressional Budget Office estimate of its cost. Paul Ryan is often described, including by himself, as a policy wonk. The House Education and Labor Committee held a hearing on the discussion draft on June 23. Most new beneficiaries are low-income adults with no children living at home.

Gardner refused to answer Tuesday whether he would support the current Medicaid provision in the bill, telling reporters only that he and others are “working through the language”. While the repeal of Obamacare needs a simple majority of 51 to 49, replacing Obamacare would need a 60-40 majority.

“It appears that the effort to restructure the Medicaid program will have the effect of making significant reductions in a program that provides services to our most vulnerable populations, and already pays providers significantly less than the cost of providing care”, wrote Richard J. Pollack, CEO of the American Hospital Association.

Some of the big concerns are with Medicaid and finding coverage for the millions of Texans who are still uninsured.

Leadership wants to keep $100 billion of the insurance company subsidies from ObamaCare but call them “reinsurance”. And this bill would hurt seniors and people who are sick the most, which is unacceptable. What is it even trying to achieve? As far as I can tell, Republicans have neither.

Trump continues to negotiate with opposition conservatives to improve the bill and gain their support, although the administration and Republican leaders are ruling out numerous major changes critics are demanding.

Misconceptions about poverty are deeply set in American political discourse. “Well, they came out with their own bill, which doesn’t include anything that the governors have talked about”.

The White House showed willingness to roll back Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion earlier than the 2020 date stipulated by the bill, in an attempt to assuage conservative opposition.

Trump has met with conservative critics of the plan this week, signaling a willingness to negotiate its details and indicating that it does not yet have enough votes to emerge from the House. This proved the most hard part of Obamacare, even more so than the bruising legislative battle. He is legally constrained about what he can say publicly about his future steps in the rulemaking process, since his comments could affect markets, Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.) said in a brief interview this week. Trump has called Obamacare a “disaster” and made its repeal and replacement a key campaign pledge.

That may be changing to a means-tested tax credit in order to win the support of conservative Republican lawmakers. This amendment was also defeated by a 31 to 23 vote. This was defeated by a party-line vote of 23 to 21 overnight. After sessions that totaled 45 hours Wednesday and Thursday, two House committees approved the Ryan-led bill, and the House Budget panel is expected to take it up next week.