GOP gov: Senate needs to change House health bill

Following weeks of in-party feuding and mounting pressure from the White House, lawmakers voted 217 to 213 to pass a bill dismantling much of Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act and allowing U.S. states to opt out of numerous law’s key health benefit guarantees. Or they may face annual or lifetime caps on reimbursement or be forced into high-deductible plans where they can not afford to pay the deductibles.

In a sign of the challenges ahead for the legislation, almost every major medical group, including the American Medical Association and the American Hospital Association, and the AARP advocacy group for older Americans, strongly opposed the Republican bill. But it is highly likely that most of the draconian provisions of “Trumpcare” will eventually be enacted. Democrats are virtually united in their opposition to the bid to revamp Obamacare. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi seemed to nearly relish the vote yesterday, warning Republicans, “You have every provision of this bill tattooed on your forehead”.

But key elements could be ditched by Republican senators, who have said they will start fresh. The House Ways and Means Committee, which will unveil the initial tax bill, is still aiming for a revenue-neutral package that raises $2.4 trillion for tax cuts through a new border adjustment tax and elimination of business deductions for net interest payments, both controversial measures. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) told The Washington Post.

“People are suffering so badly with the ravages of Obamacare”, he said. Also under the ACA, insurers must charge policyholders with prior ailments the same as those without them.

These members of congress from North Carolina may not fully be aware of all they were doing when they voted Thursday. States have established waiting lists to get into their risk pools or restricted admission to the pools, since they ultimately have to balance their budget and they have no way to predict how high costs will climb.

How that would work in practice is an open question.

And the GOP bill appears to have extremely scarce funding for high-risk pools.

A nationwide system, backed by federal subsidies might fare better. “Obamacare is falling apart and has saddled the American people with rising costs, less choice, and skyrocketing premiums”, she said.

Charge older adults more than 5 times what they charge young adults for the same coverage. Under the House bill, that would bump up to five times.

To be clear, this bill does nothing to improve the health of Americans.

It has yet to be scored by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office to determine how much the bill will cost or how many people could lose coverage.

That includes the fragile compromise between GOP conservatives and moderates that would allow governors to opt their states out of certain ObamaCare mandates.

In Massachusetts, Baker and a coalition of more than 70 organizations say they are committed to maintaining strong insurance coverage.

“There is no guarantee in the law that people with pre-existing conditions would get access to affordable coverage”, said Kaiser’s Levitt. From that point, no new Medicaid enrollees would be accepted.

“Insurance companies are fleeing ObamaCare – it is dead”. Democrats believe that they can turn the vote to replace Obamacare into a campaign issue that could see many of those seats flip to the Democratic column, helping fuel what they hope is a nationwide surge.

High earners will benefit from the elimination of a tax used by the Affordable Care Act to fund Medicaid, which hurts Medicaid’s long-run solvency. Other ACA rules, he noted, such as the ceiling on what patients pay for medical care each year, are linked to the minimum benefits.

_Ends tax penalties Obama’s law imposes on individuals who don’t purchase health insurance and on larger employers who don’t offer coverage to workers. Health care experts say that $8 billion is not close to enough.