The GOP Health Plan -or-If You're Not Wealthy You're Screwed

[rubato]

the GOP "let them die" health plan is designed to pass via reconciliation so that they don't need 60 votes to get it out of the Senate.


yrs,
rubato

[Scooter]

[Bicycle Bill]

Text (partial) of an interview on Wednesday between Dumb'old Trump and Tucker Carlson of Fox News:

CARLSON:  This bill has as one of its centerpieces a tax-cut for investors that would primarily benefit people making over $250,000 a year.  Yhey’ve already done pretty well in the past ten years, as you know.

TRUMP:  Yeah.

CARLSON:  A Bloomberg analysis showed that counties that voted for you  —  middle-class and working-class counties —  would do far less well under this bill...

TRUMP:  Yeah.  Oh, I know.

CARLSON:  ...than the counties that voted for Hillary, the more affluent counties.

TRUMP:  I know.  It’s very preliminary.

CARLSON:  It seems like maybe this isn’t consistent with the last election.

TRUMP:  No.  A lot of things aren’t consistent.  But this is going to be negotiated.

From there, Trump went on to merely complain that Democrats “hate the Republicans so badly that they cannot see straight, so they’re always going to vote against us.”  He never said anything more to address the actual substance of the legislation and the impact it’ll have on the many Americans who depend on the insurance they can access through Obamacare, which they would lose.

The Bloomberg analysis Carlson referenced found that taxpayers in counties that voted for Hillary Clinton in the election would receive a disproportionate share of the tax cut compared to those in counties that voted for Trump.  That’s because the plan cuts an additional Medicare tax that generally only more wealthy people, like those who live in or near the cities that voted for Clinton, have to pay.  There were, in fact, several hundred counties that voted for Trump in which not a single person paid the tax, so literally nobody in those counties would benefit from the tax cut.

That’s beside the fact that things would actually get worse for many Americans.  Under the Republican health plan, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that 24 million people would lose their health insurance by 2026, and the White House’s own analysis put that number at 26 million.  Premiums would ultimately go down, but only because older people would no longer be able to afford insurance, so insurance companies would no longer be on the hook for covering their expensive treatments.  As a result of all this lost coverage, approximately 17,000 people could die next year who’d otherwise live, and that number would climb to 29,000 people dying per year in 2026.

Trump knows this.  He openly admits that this plan does the exact opposite of what he promised voters during the campaign.  And he supports the plan anyway.



Why is the mob not gathered with torches and pitchforks outside the White House ... or Trump Tower, or Mar a Lago, or wherever he's holed up and hiding out ... right now?

-"BB"-

[Lord Jim]

(Moved from another thread...)

Still desperately trying to find the non-existent Goldilocks Zone:

Trump Tells G.O.P. It’s Now or Never, Demanding House Vote on Health Bill

WASHINGTON — President Trump issued an ultimatum on Thursday to recalcitrant Republicans to fall in line behind a broad health insurance overhaul or see their opportunity to repeal the Affordable Care Act vanish, demanding a Friday vote on a bill that appeared to lack a majority to pass.

The demand, issued by his budget director, Mick Mulvaney, in an evening meeting with House Republicans, came after a marathon day of negotiating at the White House and in the Capitol in which Mr. Trump — who has boasted of his deal-making prowess — fell short of selling members of his own party on the health plan.

House Speaker Paul D. Ryan emerged from the session and announced curtly that Mr. Trump would get his wish for a vote on Friday. Mr. Ryan refused to answer reporters’ questions about whether he expected the measure to pass.

Although the House Republicans’ closed-door meeting became a cheerleading session for the bill, their leaders braced for a showdown on the floor, knowing they were likely to be at least a handful of votes short of a majority for the health insurance bill and would need to muscle their colleagues to the last to prevail.

“We have a great bill, and I think we have a good chance, but it’s only politics,” Mr. Trump said earlier Thursday, as it was becoming clear that his negotiating efforts had failed to persuade enough members of his party to back the plan — which was years in the making — to repeal and replace the health law.

Privately, White House officials conceded that competing Republican factions were each demanding changes that could doom the effort, placing the measure in peril and Mr. Trump’s chances of succeeding at a high-stakes legislative deal in jeopardy. With some of its demands in place, the Freedom Caucus ratcheted up its requests, insisting on a repeal of all regulatory mandates in the Affordable Care Act, including the prohibition on excluding coverage for pre-existing medical conditions and lifetime coverage caps.

Mr. Trump, who has touted his negotiating skills and invited the label “the closer” as the vote approached, was receiving a painful reality check about the difficulty of governing,[It's complicated...Who knew?] even with his own party in power on Capitol Hill.

“Guys, we’ve got one shot here,” he told members of the Freedom Caucus at a meeting in the Cabinet Room, according to a person present in the room who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the meeting was private. “This is it — we’re voting now.

“The choice is yes or no,” Representative Joe Barton, Republican of Texas and a member of the Freedom Caucus, said on Thursday night. “I’m not going to vote no to keep Obamacare. That’d be a stupid damn vote.”

Others were unconvinced.

Having secured Mr. Trump’s acquiescence to eliminate the requirement that insurers offer “essential health benefits,” [Changes, which if this stinker ever reached the Senate, would make passage even more problematic under reconciliation rules that allow passage with a simple majority] members of the Freedom Caucus pressed their advantage. While they did not specify precisely which regulations they wanted to eliminate, the section they wanted to gut requires coverage for pre-existing health conditions, allows individuals to remain on their parents’ health care plans up to age 26, bars insurers from setting different rates for men and women, prohibits annual or lifetime limits on benefits, and requires insurers to spend at least 80 percent of premium revenue on medical care.

“We’re committed to stay here until we get it done,” said Representative Mark Meadows, Republican of North Carolina and the chairman of the Freedom Caucus. “So whether the vote is tonight, tomorrow or five days from here, the president will get a victory.”

He said 30 to 40 Republicans planned to vote “no”; House leaders can afford to lose only 22 in order to pass the bill.

But for every concession Mr. Trump made to appease critics on the right, he lost potential rank-and-file supporters in the middle, including members of the centrist Tuesday Group who had balked at the bill’s Medicaid cuts and slashed insurance benefits. Moderate Republicans in that group went to the White House on Thursday but emerged unmoved in their opposition.

“There’s a little bit of a balancing act,” conceded Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary.

Representative Leonard Lance, Republican of New Jersey, said he still opposed the bill because he did not believe it would give people “complete and affordable access” to health insurance.

At the same time, a new estimate of the bill’s cost and its impact on health coverage further soured the picture for wavering lawmakers. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office on Thursday issued a report on the revised version of the health care bill showing that it would cost more than the original version but would not cover more people. The report said the bill, like the original version, would result in 24 million fewer Americans having health insurance in 2026 than under current law.

But recent changes to the bill, made through a series of amendments introduced on Monday, would cut its deficit savings in half. Instead of reducing the deficit by $337 billion, the new version of the bill would save only $150 billion over the decade.

The budget office did not consider the effects of various additional changes that remain under negotiation, including eliminating benefit requirements and other health insurance regulations.

A Quinnipiac University national poll found that voters disapproved of the Republican plan by lopsided margins, with 56 percent opposed, 17 percent supportive and 26 percent undecided. The measure did not even draw support among a majority of Republicans; 41 percent approved, while 24 percent were opposed.

President Trump appealed to supporters to weigh in, assuring them in a video on Twitter, “Go with our plan. It’s going to be terrific.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/23/us/p ... -vote.html

If Trump demands an up or down vote on this in the House today, regardless of the whip count, he'll get it...

I think at this point, Il Boobce and The GOP leadership in the House just want to do anything to get a win on this bill in the House, even if all the changes they toss in to get those last few votes makes the bill even more completely DOA in the Senate than it already was...

At this point for them it's no longer about actually changing the law; it's about showing that at least they tried to do "something"...

And it's 6-5 pick 'em as to whether they'll even get that much...

[Burning Petard]

The House was gonna vote on this yesterday, perhaps a 1am Friday morn. Then the GOP leadership announced a vote at 9am today. I turned it on with C-Span at 0920 and they are in a discussion of a rule change-allowed one hour of debate on this change. Sort of looks like the GOP will do anything to avoid actually voting on the repeal/replace.

snailgate.

[Lord Jim]

I believe the vote is now set for around two or three this afternoon, ET...

Just more bloviating, arm twisting, and begging till then....

[ex-khobar Andy]

Who knew that this stuff was so complicated?

[BoSoxGal]

[Lord Jim]

I really find this irony hilarious...

The best friend that those who are fans of Obamacare have at the moment are the Kamikaze Randians in "The Freedom Caucus" ...

Whose brain-dead ideological purity is guaranteeing that the effort to change it will either go down in the House, or fail in the Senate...

They're doing a better job of preserving Obamacare then Nancy Pelosi could ever hope to do...

[Lord Jim]

I'm hearing that if the bill goes down today that Trump wants to just "move on" to things like tax reform and infrastructure spending ( I suspect a surprise awaits him in discovering that those things are "really complicated" too) and abandon the idea of trying to do anything about healthcare...

So I suppose the idea of passing more modest legislation that might actually help people by reducing their healthcare costs, (like the three things I mentioned earlier; allow the government to negotiate prescription drug prices, allow insurance provider competition across state lines ,and remove the health insurance industry's anti-trust exemption) are completely out of the question...

If you can't grandstand and demagogue an issue, it's not even worth your time to do anything...

[wesw]

I think that he just handed ryan (and maybe Pruitt) a piece of rope and allowed him to hang himself.

start over and do it right, or as right as possible.

the bill could only get better.

throw off the shackles of the health ins. lobby..., and their money.

yeah.... right.....

...but maybe, just maybe......

I ve given up on single payer, or maybe am not convinced of its worth.....

maybe we could start to educate our own kids as doctors.....

America first?

[ex-khobar Andy]

I wonder if at some point we need to forget Russia, forget pussy-grabbing, forget narcissism, forget his taxes (which, to give him his due, he also forgot), forget his hypocrisy over so many things (e.g., Obama's golf habit) - and just focus on the main point that the man is a fucking moron who (shudder) makes GW Bush look like a wise statesman?

To answer my own question - no, we're not there yet. And LJ - I know 43 was your guy; and for the most part with him the checks and balances worked the way they should. Except for Iraq of course, which is rather like saying the weather was nice for the Kennedys' trip to Dallas.

[Burning Petard]

Just now the House voted to stall the vote by another 4 hours of 'debate' after lunch.

snailgate

[oldr_n_wsr]

Just now the House voted to stall the vote by another 4 hours of 'debate' after lunch.

snailgate

I don't think a 4 martini lunch will suffice.
Perhaps 10?

[Guinevere]

Comparative "projected" whip counts. The number of NOs is going UP:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/201 ... .html?_r=0

[BoSoxGal]

Yup; once they sense the ship is sinking, no reason for the reluctants not to bail out and let others bear the stain.

[Lord Jim]

Comparative "projected" whip counts. The number of NOs is going UP:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/201 ... .html?_r=0

That's a great link for a political junkie Guin; thanks for posting that

[Lord Jim]

I think that he just handed ryan (and maybe Pruitt) a piece of rope and allowed him to hang himself.

It always hands me a chuckle wes, whenever I see you trying to ascribe some sort of clever or cunning framework to Lord Dampnut's words or actions...

When the glaringly obvious truth is just that' he completely winging it and floundering about ignorantly without a clue about what to actually do...

The reason this plan came from Ryan rather than from Trump is because he has never had the slightest idea regarding what to do about healthcare, (beyond demagoging the issue for political advantage and repeatedly lying by saying that he would devise a "fantastic" plan that would cover everyone and be much cheaper...like just about everything else he's said or done, a complete con job)

And not only does he have no idea, his chaos theory management style made it impossible for Price (whose department, like every other department, remains badly understaffed at critical senior positions because Trump's obsessive micromanagement and priority of loyalty over competence has slowed the appointment making process nearly to a halt) to develop a full plan either.

The House leadership came up with a plan because despite his repeated claims that he would submit one, neither he nor his Administration had the capacity to design one...

Trump never expected to win the election, and now he's like the dog who caught the car...

[Guinevere]

Vote for scheduled at 3:30. Spicey briefing now, saying "we continue to pick up votes." Not according to every reputable news source in the country #alternativefacts

Oh my, the Trumpanzee worked "so hard," from 6AM to 11PM on this. "You can only do so much." Oh snap.

[Guinevere]

GREAT question -- "He is the closer, he is the dealmaker, if this deal goes down what does that say about the [Trumpanzee]?"