Thursday, May 4, 2017

House votes on latest Obamacare replacement today

Margot Sanger-Katz has offered good analysis in the NYT.  Call your congressional representative this morning if you have thoughts about this. Those of us with preexisting conditions thank you!

UPDATE: The measure passed the House by four votes, so a squeaker. The bill may face more scrutiny and consideration when it goes to the Senate. One hopes, but these are not hopeful times.

Certainly, Obamacare has foundered in some states as insurance carriers leave the marketplace. And it is true that as premiums rise, the burden on taxpayers to provide subsidies for ACA recipients becomes heavier.

However, the GOP plan looks less like an attempt to fix Obamacare than a rush job to carry out a campaign promise. The measure was rammed through without sufficient debate or analysis. It is far less an example of good governing than a show of party strong-arming.

30 comments:

  1. My congressman has been a no from the start and will be one to the end. My old congressman was a get-to-able Republican. Redistricting moved me to where I could make a safe majority Democratic district more Democratic and my old district less get-to-ably Republican. There's always that.

    Nasty as they are, you have to laugh at a bunch of Republicans who stood up for their principles until they were offered an $8 billion fig leaf. We now know their price. And we now know what to think when they say we can't solve problems by throwing money at them.

    We just fixed Trump's and Ryan's problem by throwing $8 million at it. When the high risk pools run dry prematurely and need refilling, Republicans, safely in the minority again, will bleat that we can't solve problems by throwing money at them.

    Of course, with the Senate poised to tinker with the house of cards, who knows? Principle may return and some of the House members not stay bought.

    ReplyDelete
  2. https://cruxnow.com/interviews/2017/05/02/catholic-leader-calls-trump-healthcare-plan-unconscionable/

    "Sister Carol Keehan of the Catholic Health Association says a proposal by President Donald Trump to overhaul the health care reform enacted under Obama amounts to an "unconscionable" transfer of $880 billion from the poor to the rich.

    Yes we Democrats are not allowed to wage class warfare against the rich even thought they have been waging war against the poor, the working class and the middle class ever since Reagan. Actually it is only the 0.1% of the rich who are getting richer, even the 1% who are not in the 0.1% are just staying even relative to the rich.

    Why do Americans not only let themselves be exploited by the billionaires, but even elect one as President. Only a few people like Bernie seem to be willing to say what the problem is.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I'll try to call moronic Marino and tell him. Do not screw people with pre-existing. More people need coversge, not less. If there's anything else, let me know.

    ReplyDelete
  4. My rep is John Moolenaar, who seems mostly frightened of his constituents at town hall rallies. He tends to duck votes where he might have to appear controversial. Hope he stays home with a headache in this vote.

    ReplyDelete
  5. All my representatives are Democrats and will of course vote no.

    ReplyDelete
  6. FWIW Jean, I called my rep who, as a Repub, I expect to do Mammon's bidding. On the idiot's website, he has a display purporting to show the cost since the beginning of the year of regulations. Wonder if that spreadsheet shows the cost of a population of kids brain damaged by lead. I hate these jerks.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Many thanks, Stanley, for making the call.

      It is distressing. I was reviewing Michigan's five-year plan to make modest reductions in the incidence and mortality rates from cancer. The plan, a product of a GOP-run legislature and executive, has 40+ points aimed at changing personal behaviors and NONE that look at air, water, or land quality. Given that most cancers are likely triggered by environmental factors in people who have a genetic predispoisition, it struck me that the plan largely blames patients for their own illnesses, and assumes they're all going to be able to afford the tests and screening the plan recommends. What a waste of taxpayer money.

      Delete
    2. Yeah, Jean. A colleague from my full time employment days got lung cancer, though he ran miles a day and never smoked. Maybe a stray cosmic ray or Poconos radon. Personal behavior indeed. I'm tired of these mean politicians. Anyway, it was a cancer easily put in remission with a pill a day and Howard is fine for now.

      Delete
    3. I am glad your friend is well!

      Delete
    4. I liked the sign in one of the pictures in Jean's NYT link, "Spinelessness; is that a pre-existing condition?"

      Delete
  7. When you guys are talking about what's wrong with the Democratic party, recall that it is that party that has a health plan that covers pre-existing conditions, that party that has made strides in reducing environmental hazards to health.

    ReplyDelete
  8. I wouldn't argue that at all, Crystal. Criticizing the Democratic party isn't the same as embracing the GOP. I bitch about the Church sometimes, but that doesn't mean I want to leave it for the Southern Ba'tist Convention.

    ReplyDelete
  9. The party of slobbering orcs passed the repeal and replace. Truly, Trump is now the leader of the horde.

    ReplyDelete
  10. This makes me think of Jimmy Kimmel's mention of his son being born with a preexisting heart condition and that no one should have to decide whether they can afford to save their child's life ... https://youtu.be/1RGB7SyQm80

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, I saw that. Was surprised that someone facing such a scary thing with their own child had enough empathy to realize that other parents without buckets of money should not have to deal with both worry over their child and as financial ruin.

      Delete
    2. Some of the Repubs seem to have taken their cue from Alice in Wonderland, who famously said, "Sometimes I believe as many as six impossible things before breakfast." One of my family members, who has some big-time pre-existings, posted a link on Facebook about how the AHCA would be able to magic away all its problems and everything was going to work out swell. Hard to understand how someone can drink so deeply of the koolaid that they actively work against their own self interest.

      Delete
    3. Sorry Crystal, I posted my previous comment in the wrong place.

      Delete
    4. This comment has been removed by the author.

      Delete
  11. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Not to pile on the "ain't it awful," but among the big losers will be people on Medicaid. Julie Rovnner, who has done some of the best reporting on health care since before the ACA was passed, was on the News Hour this evening doing some explaining: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/health-care-cost-coverage-might-change-everyone-gop-bill/

    ReplyDelete
  13. I have Medicaid. I've spent my adult life being told by Republicans that I'm a social parasite because they have to work and slave to give me free health care. They are soulless.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The problem with rich white Republicans is that they don't meet people like us at the yacht club. They don't understand why our families and churches can't take care of us. When Congressman Moolenaar visited Raber's shop, he buzzed through with a couple of minions, and never said a word to the guys in the floor. Every person who has shown up at a town hall to fight to keep Obamacare, Medicaid, and Medicare deserves a Congressional Medal of Honor in my book.

      Delete
  14. The Repubs just made one of the biggest justifications for abortion come true. Who would want to birth a child into this Repub hellhole?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. They are certainly not encouraging people to choose life by killing programs that would help parents afford care for a child born with special needs. Neither are they encouraging the elderly to tough out their final illnesses by killing Medicaid that pays for nursing care. Suicide rates among the elderly are on the rise already because the prospect of The Home is so insupportable. Imagine what happens when the sick and old have to go live with grown children who have to work or who themselves have health problems.

      Again, rank ignorance about how people actually live.

      Delete
  15. I'm not sure it's that Republicans are ignorant of the suffering - I think they really just don't care. They lack empathy. They don't believe they themselves will ever need help so it's all good.

    I don't know what's happening to me. I've never felt such despair about human nature or felt such hated for a group of people before. It makes my chest hurt.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Hi. I'll say up front that I am posting here under my real name. But some of you may know me as unagidon.

    This GOP bill is not a healthcare bill. It's a tax bill masquerading as a healthcare bill. Their political problem was how to cut enough from Obamacare to give credit out a major tax break while still getting the bare minimum political support to succeed. Their bill is full of disjointed ad hoc provisions. Each one seems to me to be crafted to win over the little "constituencies" they have created who en masse think they are united, but who each have little separate scruples. For those who worry about the repeal of pre-existing condition protections, the GOP doesn't actually repeal these directly. They maintain them In law and then utterly gut them on the financial side. For people worried about Uncle Joe's cancer, they bring back these underfunded expensive risk pools that have never worked anywhere in the past. As they experience political resistance, they throw a small bone to the resistors. And since most of the people involved don't really know how American healthcare works and the ACA works, everyone can go to bed with the clear conscience of the ignorant.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Welcome, Patrick! What's your guess about how this will play out in the senate?

      Yes, the analyses I've been looking at indicate that the bill was a pastiche of giveaways designed to accommodate various reps, and to give the impression that the GOP could get something done, never mind how muddled and stupid.

      Delete
    2. The Senate is fortunately a whole new ballgame. It has different political dynamics, one of which is that many senators hope to become president when they grow up. If you think about it, it may be that the Reps passed the bill knowing that it wouldn't make it through the Senate, but knowing that they could score points with some of their base (the ones with the money) and that it would make Trump happy. I think what will happen is that the Senate will tear it apart over the coming months and send something that is different back to Congress. Whether it just looks different or actually is different is hard to say. But there are two things to remember.

      First, nothing in the GOP bill controls the prices for provider services, which is where all this money has been going because of the supposedly failing ACA. Yet the whole point of the bill is to defund healthcare. Take all that money out of the system and you either have to reduce benefits dramatically or raise prices dramatically. The GOP bill did both. (This talk of the God of the Market swooping down and coming up with "innovative" ways to treat lots more people with lots less money is nonsense. Even a market worshiper should be able to see that anyone who could do that now would make a massive pile and put everyone else out of business).

      Second, it is all going to have to be done before the next election cycle. The Dems seem to think that Trump-care is going to unseat Republicans in Red districts. I think it would be more likely that it could unseat the Tea Party who will be replaced with moderates. And I suspect that this is also part of what's going on.

      Delete
  17. It looks to me like the GOP in the Senate basically agrees on getting rid of the mandate (unpopular because people don't seem to understand why it's necessary) and redefining basic services.

    One scenario is that Congress passes its "reform" and then grandfathers it in at the beginning of 2021, which means no one knows how it will affect them until after it's too late to vote them all out.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Grandfathering would be dangerous, because the longer the law sits there un-enacted, the more time it will be analyzed, measured, and priced. Also, they would have to keep the ACA going. It is stabilizing now and the things the GOP does to try to cripple it would be more obvious. Finally, there's the problem of the states. The GOP is simply trying to unleash them, but it is the states that have been given the job of shooting people in the face. If Trumpcare is enacted to quickly in something like its current form, the political blowback of all the damage it will cause will hit the states first (a good reason to wait, as you suggest). But if they wait and people figure out what's in the law (since the states will have had time to tell people what they are going to do to them) it could blow up anyway.

      Delete