Obama spokesman: Congress needs ‘political courage’ to improve healthcare

It was no time to pour salt into fresh wounds. “It was America’s mayors who led the effort to enroll millions of Americans in the Affordable health-care plan, and Tampa will continue to work with local and state partners to promote and provide information on ways to enroll”.

INSKEEP: OK. Well, we’ll find out what he meant in the coming days. Vox’s Tara Golshan was at the conference’s regular Friday meeting this morning, where she spoke with conservative Freedom Caucus Chair Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC). Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was visibly upset.

“Everybody’s going to be taken care of much better than they’re taken care of now”. President Donald Trump, however, does not seem ready to acknowledge anything good in his predecessor’s signature domestic program.

But whether there’s much appetite among Republicans for merely tweaking the health insurance program remains to be seen.

Dan Mendelson, president of the consulting firm Avalere, says there is some hope that the Trump administration could yet shore up the system.

First, this is not just the failure of one health care bill.

The saga of the Affordable Care Act illustrates how hard it is to do away with a government program once millions are benefiting.

Other than that, Cox said, “there are very few areas of bipartisan overlap”. What I remember is Candidate Obama promising if he became President Obama, health insurance costs would stop rising. Anthem is seeking an average 33.8 percent increase on plans covering individuals and their families and ConnectiCare has asked for an average rate hike of 15.2 percent on policies it sells through the exchange. They found that in states that expanded Medicaid, the gap in insurance coverage between residents of poor households (incomes of less than $25,000) and higher-income households (over $75,000) fell by 46 percent between 2013 and 2015. But even with that requirement still legally in place, the Trump administration has leeway in how strictly to enforce it.

Low-income people in states that didn’t expand Medicaid experienced greater healthcare access with an 8.8 percentage point increase in insurance coverage and 4.4 percentage point increase in primary-care provider access.

The administration has kept insurance companies guessing about whether it will continue to reimburse them for the cost-sharing subsidies.

In a letter to McConnell last month, Sen. “It’s time for real cooperation”. “These are the people who won’t move heaven and earth to get enrolled on their own”. Trump also stated that he “said from the beginning, let Obamacare implode and then do it. Watch!” he tweeted after the Senate vote.

In the quest to address Obamacare’s failures, some have been advocating for a single-payer, government-run health care system in which health care is provided for every single citizen for free and financed by taxes. “I don’t want to cause hardship for a lot of people”, said Representative Charlie Dent of Pennsylvania, who voted against the House bill in May. His end goal is for the Democrats to capitulate to him in a subtle way.

The Congressional Budget Office estimated it would reduce the deficit by $473 billion over 10 years, but 17 million more people would be uninsured by next year and 32 million by 2026. Republicans and Democrats must work together if this government is to take the leadership role it was created to take.

While the ACA brought insurance to 20 million people, drugmakers said it hasn’t boosted their profits.

This is all to say, Obamacare repeal is dead now.

So I think there is an increasing desire on the part of Republicans to do something to stabilize the market.

H.W. Brands, a professor of USA history at the University of Texas at Austin, said people have little investment in a program’s success before they experience its benefits.