Senate health-care draft repeals Obamacare taxes, provides bigger subsidies for low-income Americans
Source: Washington Post
Senate leaders on Wednesday were putting the final touches on legislation that would reshape a big piece of the U.S. health-care system by dramatically rolling back Medicaid while providing a softer landing to Americans who stand to lose coverage gained under the Affordable Care Act.
A discussion draft circulating Wednesday afternoon among aides and lobbyists would roll back the ACAs taxes, phase down its Medicaid expansion, rejigger its subsidies, give states wider latitude in opting out of its regulations and eliminate federal funding for Planned Parenthood.
The bill largely mirrors the House measure that narrowly passed last month but with some significant changes. While the House legislation pegged federal insurance subsidies to age, the Senate bill would link them to income as the ACA does. The Senate proposal cuts off Medicaid expansion more gradually than the House bill, but would enact deeper long-term cuts to the health-care program for low-income Americans. It also removes language restricting federally-subsidized health plans from covering abortions, which may have run afoul of complex budget rules.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) intends to present the draft to wary GOP senators at a meeting on Thursday morning. McConnell has vowed to hold a vote before senators go home for the July Fourth recess, but he is still seeking the 50 votes necessary to pass the major legislation under arcane budget rules. A handful of senators from conservatives to moderates are by no means persuaded that they can vote for the emerging measure.
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/senate-health-care-draft-repeals-obamacare-taxes-provides-bigger-subsidies-for-low-income-americans-than-house-bill/2017/06/21/3f2226ee-56bd-11e7-ba90-f5875b7d1876_story.html?utm_term=.7a9da1934689&wpisrc=al_a
Basically a slightly less crappy version of the House bill
wryter2000
(46,045 posts)To make it impossible to reconcile? Could the House kill it?
COLGATE4
(14,732 posts)1) decimating the social safety net for less fortunate Americans and 2) ensuring even greater tax giveaways for the wealthiest 1% they will reconcile it. Those are the only two things motivating them.
elmac
(4,642 posts)is just another republican death panel decision.
angstlessk
(11,862 posts)your grave paid for that!
Bernardo de La Paz
(49,001 posts)Do not let Republican Trump or Republican Pence or Republican Ryan or Republican McCONnell lies stand when they say it is better for Americans.
Everybody already has "access" to health care insurance. Everybody has "access" to the luxury suites at a Trump hotel; they just have to pay the outrageous rates. Making health insurance unaffordable is NOT greater access.
bucolic_frolic
(43,161 posts)and eliminate the unemployed as members of society
Did I miss anything?
still_one
(92,190 posts)Freethinker65
(10,021 posts)Jim Lane
(11,175 posts)Fiscally, it's not a huge item, but it might be a deal-breaker. I think Murkowski and Collins both said they'd vote No if that were in there. If they hold to that, then it takes only one more GOP defector, on the Planned Parenthood issue or anything else about the bill, to deny them their majority.
karynnj
(59,503 posts)I also think that opposition to PP is not important to many RW legislators, cutting government and taxes is.
They use PP to stir up their base.
Jim Lane
(11,175 posts)It would make sense for them to dump the attack on Planned Parenthood, but McConnell's newly announced bill retains that part of the House bill. As you say, they use it to stir up the base. Their decision to keep it in the bill tells me that they feared angering the base more than they feared losing Murkowski and Collins.
Maybe their plan is to back off that provision over the next week, and tell the anti-abortion zealots that at least they tried. Alternatively, they may be relying on party loyalty to bring ferocious pressure to bear on all the Republicans, those who disagree with the bill from the left and from the right. The pitch would be "We've been campaigning on repealing Obamacare and this is the ONLY way to get it done, so you centrists have to agree to defund Planned Parenthood and you extreme conservatives have to agree to a slower Medicaid phase-out, and everybody just STFU."
karynnj
(59,503 posts)with that as the stated reason. I think it is the need to get under reconciliation - not fear of the base or fear of the two Senators that are important here. They absolutely do not have 60 votes.
At the risk of people misunderstanding what I mean, this is similar to why the Democrats did not add what was needed to have a public option in the reconciliation bill that was passed soon after the passage of the Senate bill being passed as is with 60 votes under the regular process. I expect, if they do that, just as MANY here argued that they could have done so if Obama, Baucus, etc would have allowed it -- there will be some on their politically active base who similarly will argue that this did not happen because someone important did not want it.
mountain grammy
(26,621 posts)Gardner is working on this. He's a fucking religious fanatic who is pro forced birth, anti birth control, but many women in CO voted for his pretty smile.. because they like living under a boot, I guess.
BainsBane
(53,032 posts)particularly the part about removing language on restrictions on abortion.
karynnj
(59,503 posts)They know they do not have 60 votes. Under reconciliation they only need 50. Not to mention, that means they can continue to use PP as a raw meat issue with the base.
It will also be used by Lisa Murkowski to justify voting for this as a compromise bill. What they want is to cut billions to use for tax cuts for the wealthy.
briv1016
(1,570 posts)I say 20 million lose healthcare with this version.
nikibatts
(2,198 posts)The devil is in the details that we probably won't see but there is enough sweetness in it to make it palpable to the Trump base and the moderate GOPers. The real problem will be that the media will give all the positive messaging time to the GOP and the Dems will come off as being opposed to healthcare and whiny. Our opposition to it must be carefully crafted. These fuckers know the push-button words to use for their base. If we can't get their base to protest with us, it will become law within a month.
Akoto
(4,266 posts)karynnj
(59,503 posts)I suspect that many readers who see the article will take the phrase "bigger subsidies" to be a comparison with ACA, the exisiting law, not the House bill.
I hope the Democrats will quickly get some tables out that put numbers to show how much people at different incomes stand to lose.
I agree completely with your assessential it is a terrible bill. I even wonder if the Republicans planned the shift from having subsidies by age to income to give cover to some Senators to vote for this. It never made sense to base them on age, not income.
Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin
(107,986 posts)If one goes to the article it says " larger subsidies than house bill"
karynnj
(59,503 posts)I get the limitations of the LBN format. I did not go to the article so that the full title. (It is a lot better that the WP has the fuller headline.
Marthe48
(16,959 posts)or Mom? or Dad?
My mother-in-law is in a nursing home because she has dementia. My husband and I were her main caretakers until it wasn't possible to care for her. She just turned 93. Except for dementia, she is in good health. She could live many more years and I hope she does. The first couple of months at the nursing home took care of her savings and she qualified for Medicaid in Ohio. She pays almost all of her SS to the nursing home. I haven't cancelled her secondary insurance coverage because of the uncertainty she'll need it because of the slavering pukes who are hellbent on killing people like her. If I cancel it, the money that went for the premium will go to the nursing home. We don't mind that. She is safe and cared for. If this health coverage plundering occurs, who can take her? We couldn't meet her needs 2 years ago, how will we meet them now? Or in 2020? What happens to people who are unable to leave a professional nursing care facility? Like paraplegics? Or the profoundly challenged?
How many families will just refuse to take their loved ones back into their homes? Will nursing home residents who have no one, no money, no assets just be put out on the curb, like wretched refuse? Are we really back to that?
Sunlei
(22,651 posts)uninsured dying, injured & critically sick people and HUGE COSTS to states to pay their hospitals.