Paul Revere by Cyrus Dallin, North End, Boston

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Wednesday, March 8, 2017

American Health Care Act?

UPDATE BELOW




American Health Care Act? AHCA? Put a "C" for "crazy"in front and you get what it is "CAHCA."

I haven't been able to find any reputable health care organization that thinks this travesty is good for anyone's health care.

As it is written and as I am able to understand it from reports, the new Republican plan hurts the poor and enriches the rich -- which is understandable, since that is standard operating philosophy of the current Gee-Oh-Pee, led by the "zombie-eyed granny starver."*

Lord Dampnut PROMISED the best health care for EVERYONE in America, and he PROMISED it would be a beautiful plan. 


"The New Yorker’s John Cassidy explained: 

The bill aims to take a wrecking ball to the principle of universal coverage. If enacted, millions of Americans would end up without any coverage. For many people who purchase individual policies, especially older people, it promises fewer services for more money. And it also proposes a big tax cut for the rich, which would be financed by slashing Medicaid, the federal program that provides health care to low-income people. […] 

 Back in January, Donald Trump promised that the replacement for Obamacare would provide “insurance for everybody.” By endorsing the American Health Care Act, on Tuesday, Trump has broken his pledge." 


As is usual, Trump doesn't know what he's talking about, since the proposed GOP plan is a dumpster fire of a disaster for Americans that will benefit Lord Dampnut's richy rich billionaire friends.

Make no mistake, when the Goopers make policy, it always benefits the comfortable, well-off Americans and it always hurts the neediest, most vulnerable Americans. Just review what trump has done over the last 45+ days he's been in office. 



The Wall Street Journals Your Money Matters 
How GOP Healthcare Plan Benefits the Wealthiest 3/8/2017 12:15AM

 Top income earners would pay less in taxes under the House Republican healthcare proposal. The Wall Street Journal's Richard Rubin on the changes.




Hospitals come out against GOP healthcare bill


“We ask Congress to protect our patients, and find ways to maintain coverage for as many Americans as possible,” Richard Pollack, the president and CEO of the American Hospital Association, wrote in a letter to House Republicans. “We look forward to continuing to work with the Congress and the Administration on [Affordable Care Act] ACA reform, but we cannot support The American Health Care Act in its current form,” he said.


ARP rips GOP's 'harmful' healthcare legislation


AARP is going on the warpath against the Republican proposal to repeal and replace ObamaCare. The lobbying group for seniors accused House Republican leaders of crafting legislation that increases insurance premiums for consumers, while giving a “sweetheart deal” to “big drug companies and special interests.” 

 “Although no one believes the current health care system is perfect, this harmful legislation would make health care less secure and less affordable,” said Nancy LeaMond, AARP’s executive vice president, said in a statement. Republicans unveiled the long-awaited healthcare reform proposal, called the American Health Care Act, on Monday. The AARP blasted several aspects of the legislation, including provisions that would scale back the Medicaid expansion and cut back the amount of federal funding per enrollee. 

 The advocacy group for seniors also slammed the Republican push to eliminate the ObamaCare-era taxes that have helped fund an expansion of insurance coverage. LeaMond said the bill "would weaken Medicare." AARP also highlights a provision in the American Health Care Act allowing insurance companies to charge patients in their 50s and early 60s up to five times more than younger policy holders. Under current rules put in place by ObamaCare, those fees are capped at a three-to-one ratio.


Powerful conservative forces line up against House GOP health plan 

Heritage calls it 'bad policy.' 




With the ink barely dry on the legislation, powerful conservative groups and prominent GOP lawmakers started lining up against House Republicans’ plan to replace Obamacare, even as President Donald Trump threw his support behind the legislation. 

 With little early defense from the White House, the groups issued sharply worded statements against the House GOP replacement bill, which would offer less generous insurance tax credits and phase out the law’s Medicaid expansion while striking its unpopular individual mandate penalty.


UPDATE


The American Medical Association just announced that it “cannot support” the Republican bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act. 

 The AMA announced its opposition in a letter Wednesday morning, hours before two House committees were set to mark up repeal legislation. It comes one day after a slew of patient advocacy and health industry groups including the American Hospital Association announced they were against the House GOP bill ― and it’s one more sign of political trouble for the Republican repeal effort. 

“While we agree that there are problems with the ACA that must be addressed, we cannot support the AHCA as drafted because of the expected decline in health insurance coverage and the potential harm it would cause to vulnerable patient populations,” AMA chief executive James Madara said in the letter. In the detailed letter, Madara raises objections to the key pillars of the Republican plan, including a rollback of the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion. 

“Medicaid expansion has proven highly successful in providing coverage for lower income individuals,” he said, making a point that a variety of public health researchers have.





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Here are the garbled and incoherent words of America's current president and leader of the free world on his administration's "repeal and replace" junk of a bill:


"We’re going to do something that’s great, and I am proud to support the replacement plan released by the House of Representatives...this will be a plan where you can choose your plan. And you know what the plan is. This is the plan. It’s a complicated process, but actually it’s very simple, it’s called good health care."  -- Lord Dampnut




*Once Upon A Time, There Was A Zombie-Eyed Granny Starver

27 comments:

Anonymous said...

Who do the Republicans serve? What drives them to absolutely attack their fellow Americans this way? It's mind boggling how vicious the Reppublicans can be not just to their fellow countryment, but to humanity at large.

Shaw Kenawe said...

Anon @9:59, the philosophy of the current GOP is to shun the sick and kick the poor. That's what drives them.

NB: Paul Ryan has been on the (as Goopers like to put it) "government teat" since he was a child. He's never held a private sector job. Yet he's pushing to destroy poor and middle calss American's health care while he enjoys one of the best health care plans in the country, paid for by your tax dollars, but NOT by Donald Trump's, because your president doesn't pay taxes.

Let that sink in.

Dave Miller said...

Shaw, is this the plan Trump had ready the week after the inauguration when he said he had a plan ready to go in days?

It will be interesting to see his people spin this plan when the CBO scores it and says millions will lose coverage, it will cost a mint, and it will add trillions to the deficit.

I predict they will say the CBO is always wrong and will be shown wrong on this.

Then when the Dems return to power, the CBO will become trusted again.

Shaw Kenawe said...

Someone sent this to me in my email: "Since the Federal government has no Constitutional mandate to deliver/require/fund healthcare ."

People need to remember that the Constitution had no "mandate" to repeal slavery either. But it was repealed, through our bloodiest war. There was no Constitutional mandate to give African-Americans and women the vote either. Originalists always ignor those historical events. Societies grow and change. The Constitution was written by 18th century men. We are in the 21st century. A few things have changed. Our Declaration of Independence states free men are guaranteed the pursuit of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. None of those things is possible if a family is financially wiped out by health care catastrophes.

We live in the 21st century, not the 18th. To accept that it was correct to change the Constitution to repeal slavery and to give African-Americans and women the right to vote and not understand that universal health care is also an implied right in civilized societies is to understand nothing.

We are the only western civilization that fights (well just 40% of the population) against universal health care coverage. Notice that those GOP law makers are ALL covered by our taxes, but they will deny coverage to the rest of us.

That's pretty much the definition of tyranny.

Jerry Critter said...

Where does it improve healthcare for anyone?

skudrunner said...

"People need to remember that the Constitution had no "mandate" to repeal slavery either"
No but the Declaration of Independence does.

Hopefully the revised ACA will fix some of the major pit falls of obamacare. Get obamacare or you get fined, pregnancy benefits for males, deductibles you choose, ability to select different plans to meet individual needs.

Obamacare was a thrown together massive bill that no one had a chance to read, not that any of our elected elite would bother because it is the party that matters and to hell with the will of the people.

Like chuckie said, now the republicans own this piece of S---, or something like that. obamacare was a huge contributing factor to -H- loss to DJT, that and she was a horrible choice.

Unlike madam pelosi's tactic at least congress will get to read it before they vote along party lines. The dems need to pass it so they can hold it over the republicans head.

Shaw Kenawe said...

Dave, first and foremost, we must remember that Donald J. Trump is NOT a man of his words. A lot of people are saying "Look what he's done!" in so short a period. Yes, let's look at what he's done:

His disastrous Muslim ban

His removal of EPA restrictions on polluting rivers and streams for the benefit of corporations.

Installed unqualified people to head key cabinet posts

Tweeted out accusations of wiretapping by President Obama without a scintilla of evidence

Went on 5 golfing weekends costing $3 million a pop before he's been in office 2 months.

By making alt-right Steven Bannon as his strategic adviser, he encouraged alt-right anti-Semitism that attacked Jewish communities around the country.

Babbled erroneous information about Guantanamo releases.

Praised the GOP's horrible replacement plan for the ACA, proving he doesn't know what's in it.

I'm too busy just now to go on.


Shaw Kenawe said...

"People need to remember that the Constitution had no "mandate" to repeal slavery either" --S.K.
skud: "No but the Declaration of Independence does."

No, you're wrong. The DoI does NOT repeal slavery. Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 did.

In any event, our laws are based on the U.S. Constitution, not the Declaration of Independence. That document listed the grievances against King George that precipitated the American Revolution.




THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE AND THE DEBATE OVER SLAVERY

When Thomas Jefferson included a passage attacking slavery in his draft of the Declaration of Independence it initiated the most intense debate among the delegates gathered at Philadelphia in the spring and early summer of 1776. Jefferson's passage on slavery was the most important section removed from the final document. It was replaced with a more ambiguous passage about King George's incitement of "domestic insurrections among us." Decades later Jefferson blamed the removal of the passage on delegates from South Carolina and Georgia and Northern delegates who represented merchants who were at the time actively involved in the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. Jefferson's original passage on slavery appears below.

He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the Christian King of Great Britain. Determined to keep open a market where Men should be bought & sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or restrain this execrable commerce. And that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, by murdering the people on whom he has obtruded them: thus paying off former crimes committed again the Liberties of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another.


SOURCE

Shaw Kenawe said...

And this was sent to me by a facebook friend (Thank you, James):

While we are all watching the orange train wreck, this is the real damage.
In case anyone is getting too sidetracked by the Russian spy drama and the 'Obama bugging', the following bills have been introduced:

1. HR 861 Terminate the Environmental Protection Agency
2. HR 610 Vouchers for Public Education
3. HR 899 Terminate the Department of Education
4. HJR 69 Repeal Rule Protecting Wildlife
5. HR 370 Repeal Affordable Care Act
6. HR 354 Defund Planned Parenthood
7. HR 785 National Right to Work (this one ends unions)
8. HR 83 Mobilizing Against Sanctuary Cities Bill
9. HR 147 Criminalizing Abortion (“Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act”)
10. HR 808 Sanctions against Iran

Please copy/paste and share widely. Call your House Representative and ask them to not only vote "NO"...but to speak up for our rights, health & safety, and our beautiful country.

If your senators and reps aren't saved in your phone yet, text your zip code to 520-200-2223. You'll get a text back with everyone's contact info. It gives you Federal and State.

Shaw Kenawe said...

More on how even Conservatives hate the AHCA:

As people began to digest the Republican health care plan on Tuesday, a few things became clear:

1. “This isn’t an Obamacare repeal, it’s a Medicaid repeal,” as the political writer Jonathan Allen put it.

Many Republicans have long viewed Medicaid — a health insurance program for the poor, the disabled and some elderly — with skepticism. This plan would make very large cuts to the program. The details are somewhat technical, and Edwin Park of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities explains them. But the real-world effects will be concrete: Many people will lose coverage, and some kinds of care, if the bill becomes law.

2. Conservative policy experts hate the bill, and the criticisms come from both the far right and the center right.

Peter Suderman of Reason had an excellent frame for understanding the right’s civil war over health care: Conservatives don’t even agree on what their goals are. Making health care less expensive? Reducing the government’s role? Ensuring that the poor receive fewer subsidies?
Lacking this agreement, many Republicans have pretended that a magical health plan exists, one that would cover everyone, provide good insurance and cost less money. Wouldn’t that be nice!

Shaw Kenawe said...

(cont.)

The most entertaining episode in the civil war happened after Charles C. W. Cooke tweeted, “I’ve yet to read a single positive analysis of the House’s Obamacare bill.” A conservative replied: “try going 2 a conservative source? Open up your reading habits 2 include those w/ whom u would naturally dismiss.”

To which Cooke replied, accurately, “I’m the editor of National Review Online.”

3. To overcome the tensions, Republican leaders want to rush the bill through, before the Congressional Budget Office can release its independent estimates of the bill’s effects.
“What a farce,” wrote Philip Klein, managing editor of the conservative Washington Examiner.
For more on health care, see Paul Krugman’s blog post, Ross Douthat’s column, the Editorial Board’s take and an Op-Ed on the return of rationing.

The full Opinion report from The Times follows, including Jody Freeman on the American auto industry abandoning an environmental commitment."


--David Leonhardt
Op-Ed Columnist

Dave Miller said...

Skud... you wrote "Hopefully the revised ACA will fix some of the major pit falls of obamacare. Get obamacare or you get fined, pregnancy benefits for males, deductibles you choose, ability to select different plans to meet individual needs."

One of the biggest complaints about Obamacare, or the ACA is the requirement that you either get insurance, or pay a fine. I know that for many they want the right to make their own decisions but it doesn't get to work that way. If a parent chooses, theoretically by his or her right, to not insure his family, what happens when junior falls out of a tree, or gets hit by a car or get a major curable illness? Who pays for that?

The answer, that many conservatives refuse to acknowledge, is all of us. because we are never going to tell someone that because they opted out of insurance, their kid is going to die. Now, maybe some conservatives want that to happen, but I think we should error on the side of compassion. So what should we do? You take away the mandate, and the system collapses because we really are all in this together. United.

There may in fact be pregnancy related benefits for guys, like leave, etc and maybe one day, birth control. But as a guy, I'd love paid time off to be with my new born. What is wrong with that?

Choosing deductibles... when I was in the system, I had a big choice of deductibles I could choose so I don't get where you're coming from on that. I also had a huge variety of choices for my care and I am here in Nevada, not a huge state. I will admit our GOP Gov took the plan and made it work here for the people of his state as he should have. In essence, he chose people over ideology.

you've mentioned the parts you do not like, but have failed, like so many others, to tell us why. Can you do that?

Ducky's here said...

From the Guardian, add this to the list of executive orders to Make America Great :

The Trump administration has prepared a new executive order that would extinguish regulatory controls designed to prevent US companies profiting from and encouraging the spread of “conflict minerals” that are inflaming violence in Congo.

A draft executive order, composed last week and obtained by the Guardian, proposes a two-year suspension of a portion of the Dodd-Frank financial reforms that requires US firms to carry out due diligence to ensure that the products they sell include no minerals mined in the Democratic Republic of the Congo or neighbouring countries. The regulation was widely applauded as a mainstay of attempts to cut the umbilical chord between big business and violent warlords who have spread unrest throughout the Congo and caused the deaths of more than five million people since the 1990s.

---------------------
I smell Bannon in this one but maybe President Happy Hands had an epiphany.

Shaw Kenawe said...

From P.M. Carpenter, a woman who voted for Trump:

Martha Brawley of Monroe, N.C., is one of the millions who is now getting an education on Trump.

The NYT:

She voted for President Trump in the hope he could make insurance more affordable. But on Tuesday, Ms. Brawley, 55 [who was recently diagnosed with an autoimmune liver disease], was feeling increasingly nervous based on what she had heard about the new plan from television news reports. She pays about $260 per month for a Blue Cross plan and receives a subsidy of $724 per month to cover the rest of her premium. Under the House plan [which Trump has called "wonderful," "tremendous," and "great"], she would receive $3,500 a year in tax credits — $5,188 less than she gets under the Affordable Care Act.

"I’m scared, I’ll tell you that right now, to think about not having insurance at my age," said Ms. Brawley.

At least she knows whom to thank for her fear.

BB-Idaho said...

E-mailed my very redstate congressman, informed him the GOP plan was a disaster and laid out a short logical reason to go to European style single payer. Presumably
he will turn even redder as his blood pressure goes up.

Dave Miller said...

She must be a lazy slacker because she can't afford her ins on her pay, if she even has a job.

Maybe she could get rid of her IPhone to help cover the cost. People need to be responsible and make better choices.

She should not have taken Trump literally when he promised a better outcome/system...

BB-Idaho said...

Re: from above "obamacare was a huge contributing factor to -H- loss to DJT, that and she was a horrible choice." Oh, there was a much worse choice!

Shaw Kenawe said...

Ducky, is there anything that this Bannon administration does that won't destroy the basic foundations of this country?

BB-Idaho and Dave, the latest plan for "coverage for everyone and at a lower cost" as Trump promised looks like it will be DOA because it assaults the most vulnerable and rewards the most comfortable.

Why am I not surprised?

Craig said...

There may in fact be pregnancy related benefits for guys, like leave, etc and maybe one day, birth control. But as a guy, I'd love paid time off to be with my new born. What is wrong with that?

Dave, I don't think that's what Skud is referring to since there is nothing in the ACA about paid leave for either the mother or the father. That would require separate paid leave legislation Repubs would never pass. The ACA requires insurers to cover medicals during a pregnancy and delivery without charging women higher premiums for the pre-existing condition of being female. Skud thinks he shouldn't have to contribute since he'll never get pregnant. Poor Skud might not be familiar with the fact that, very often, males have a hand in getting women pregnant.

ability to select different plans to meet individual needs."

The Repubs want to go back to ins. co.s selling cheap plans that cover a couple doctor visits but are worthless if you ever need them. Before the ACA, over half of all bankruptcies were due to medical costs. Half of those were people WITH insurance. Cheap plans that they thought met their individual needs.

As someone who benefits from the ACA, I empathize with Trump voters who fear losing their coverage. But, good grief, when someone promises more choice, better coverage and it will cost less, doesn't that sound a little too good to be true? My empathy is wearing thin.

Shaw Kenawe said...


Also, Craig, skud probably isn't aware that insurance companies in the past charged premiums for health insurance that included enough to cover pregnancy costs. That's how insurance works. Premiums are calculated to include risks and potential circumstances and are pooled so that coverage can be extended to a particular circumstance for men or women when needed. He apparently doesn't understand that.

Dave Miller said...

Shaw, it isn't that ppl don't understand... it's that they don't accept certain facts as reality. Many live in a reality explained as "false facts."

Jerry Critter said...

"He apparently doesn't understand that."

My goodness! Who would have guessed. Life is complicated!

Kevin Robbins said...

Shaw, I like the CAHCA acronym. I'm going with Crappy American Health Care Act, though. Figure crappy and cahca go better together.

Shaw Kenawe said...

Kevin, "Crappy American Health Care Act" is perfect for CAHCA!

Stephen B. said...

Suppose that every day of your life you have been getting kicked in the face. You finally have enough and demand something be done. And so a law is passed that specifies that from this point forward you will be kicked in the ass instead. This is obviously better than being kicked in the face but not optimal. Ideally, you'd rather not be kicked at all.
Eventually you elect politicians who realize that people are tired of being kicked in the ass and promise to put a stop to that.
And so, they repeal the ass kicking law, permitting you once again to be kicked in the face. For good measure they also kick you in the nuts.
This illustrates the progression from loosely regulated private insurance to the ACA to Trump care .

Shaw Kenawe said...

Skudrunner isn't the only conservative who doesn't understand why insurance premiums cover prenatal costs. Even members of the US House don't get it either. And they're our lawmakers!!!

Feud breaks out during health care hearing as Republican whines that men have to pay for prenatal care

Shaw Kenawe said...

From Michael J.Scott.:

From the NYTimes: “Donald Trump’s most ardent supporters are likely to be hit the hardest if he makes good on his promise to dismantle the Affordable Care Act and embark on trade wars with China and Mexico.”

“An analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that 6.3 million of the 11.5 million Americans who used the A.C.A. marketplace to buy their insurance last year live in Republican congressional districts. Policy analysts say that a rollback of the A.C.A. would hurt older and rural Americans — two populations that favored Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton in the presidential election.”


As he has done his whole life, Trump has sold those who follow him as some sort of money-drenched messiah a bill of goods, but this time the lie is likely to manifest in loss of life, as sick people lose coverage.

Donald Trump has sold his supporters — and by extension, this country — a ticket to hell."