President Trump to talk health care in meeting with governors
Kennedy’s move comes after weeks of speculation about how Republicans would proceed with its intent to repeal and replace Obamacare.
And maybe now, maybe the president and some of the Republicans understand you can’t go beyond the rhetoric, ‘We’re gonna repeal the Affordable Care Act, we’re gonna repeal Obamacare and everything will be wonderful’. He also testified January 31 before the House Oversight & Government Reform’s Subcommittee on Health Care, Benefits and Administrative Rules.
The president likely got an earful during a meeting with health insurance executives at the White House.
“We all have the same goals as far as people having access [to health care]”, said Utah Governor Gary Herbert, whose state has not expanded Medicaid. There is no statutory requirement for him to do health care before he works on tax reform. “We’ve taken the best of everything we could take”.
Rifts emerged between Republican governors in states that opted to expand Medicaid under the 2010 health care law and those that did not.
“The Republican bill raises families’ costs, weakens coverage, and pushes millions of Americans off of health coverage of any kind”, Democratic Leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said in a statement.
House Speaker Paul Ryan had promised legislation on Obamacare after lawmakers returned to Washington this week from a 10-day recess.
About half of Americans have healthcare insurance through their employers, another third are covered by government programs for senior citizens and impoverished people, while the rest are faced with buying insurance under Obamacare or have chosen to pay the penalty for not purchasing it.
Insurers have reportedly been pushing for that change. The Feds reportedly would offer $100 billion to states in innovation grants to help subsidize expensive enrollees. Those who let coverage lapse and re-enroll would face a 30 percent boost in premiums for a year. “The replacement or Medicaid expansion could be separate votes”.
Tennessee Sen. Lamar Alexander, who chairs the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee that shares jurisdiction over the issue, said he didn’t expect Trump to “dictate from on high” during his address, but to simply outline GOP principles. That’s why the Republicans have to reach out to some of the Democrats.
Seventy-one percent of those polled said they want any rewriting of the law to preserve the provision preventing those with pre-existing conditions from being denied coverage while 27 percent called for the provision to be eliminated. “Not the fair thing to do for the people”.
President Trump told the governors Monday his administration has come up with a solution “that’s really, really, I think very good”. But even so, he said, “ObamaCare is not ideal”.
“I used to have to go the emergency room just to get my medications filled and it would cost nearly $1,000”, he says. But that turned out to be pretty unpopular even among Republicans, who naturally wanted to know what they were going to get before Obamacare was dismantled.
Republicans have been railing against the Affordable Care Act since before it even passed, John Oliver noted on Sunday’s Last Week Tonight.