TrumpCare

[919]

In a Sunday morning interview with CBS News, White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus predicted that TrumpCare 3.0 “will be one of the fastest pieces of signature legislation to go through for a president since [Franklin Roosevelt].”

But that promise for new deal-style speed seems to be in conflict with what Priebus’ boss who told Fox News’ Eric Bolling in an interview that will air today at 5 p.m. ET that he might walk away from a plan that isn’t good for Trump’s blue-collar political base.


“We’re either gonna have a great plan, or I’m not signing it,” the president said.

This would seem to suggest that there are some, um, disagreements present. The legislation that is due up for a vote as soon as Wednesday would be even less generous with subsidies and guarantees for working-class Americans.

The same goes for the hanging question about insurance for individuals with preexisting conditions. Trump on Sunday told CBS News that the plan would “beautifully” deal with individuals who prior to ObamaCare could not get coverage in the normal insurance market.

Trump said that the legislation is “changing” and will have “guarantees” for coverage of those with preexisting conditions. “I mandate it,” Trump said.

The change to the law would have to be pretty significant since the last version circulated would allow states to opt out of the preexisting condition requirement. And many states would be tempted to do so since the requirement proves hugely expensive for insurers and has been a massive driver of rate increases since 2010.

Your takeaway here, though, is that as we hear promises of momentum on TrumpCare once again, we hear the same confusion we did the first two times around.

It’s hard to imagine why the dozens of vulnerable House Democrats from more-moderate suburban districts would want to take such a substantial political risk on legislation that started as unpopular and only gotten worse, especially when their president suggests he might kill the whole thing in the end, anyway.

It was said that the reason that the White House rolled out the first draft of the new GOP tax plan was that Team Trump had learned a lesson from the botched health insurance law.

It would seem not.

House leaders still have no incentive to call a vote for a bill that can’t pass. The relationship between members and leaders has as a core principle the idea that the leaders don’t ask the members to walk the plank on doomed legislation.

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi never learned that lesson and made Democratic defeat in 2010 even worse than necessary by forcing House Democrats to cast votes on global warming legislation even though it was already declared dead in the Senate.


This is starting to look increasingly like that debacle, and rank-and-file House members know it.


Sunday’s short-term spending package cleared the table so Republicans can focus on more pressing concerns. Faced with a looming deadline and a politically disastrous outcome, they opted not to fight.


But it’s not hard to imagine that that’s where Republicans are going to eventually end up on ObamaCare: bailing out insurance companies and extending subsidies this fall and making no substantive changes to the law.


And if they use their legislative reboot bought at the price of a porky, aimless spending package to just stumble on TrumpCare again, that’s exactly where they will end up.

https://www.google.com/amp/www.foxn...gop-wager-house-control-on-trumpcare.amp.html

 

[919]

A Pre-Existing Problem

Robert Schlesinger • May 1, 2017, at 11:35 a.m.

---

President Donald Trump gave an interview Sunday in which he talked about the health care legislation he favors. His comments leave one with an inescapable conclusion: Either the president does not understand his own health care plan or he is willingly lying about its contents ( no great surprise, admittedly). Or, I suppose, both things could be true.



The biggest issue at hand is protections for people with pre-existing conditions. Here's what he told CBS' John Dickerson on "Face the Nation": "Pre-existing conditions are in the bill. And I just watched another network than yours, and they were saying, 'Pre-existing is not covered.' Pre-existing conditions are in the bill. And I mandate it. I said, 'Has to be.'" And later: "They say we don't cover pre-existing conditions, we cover it beautifully." And, he said, the bill has a "clause that guarantees" coverage for pre-existing conditions.



The actual facts of the matter are a bit more complicated, but the bottom line is that the president is, whether willfully or obliviously, not telling the truth. And while Trump famously told Republican lawmakers during the first round of health care negotiations that they should " forget about the little shit," this is a perfect example of why the details matter.



Trump is correct that if the American Health Care Act is enacted (with the modifications negotiated by the House Freedom Caucus and a leader of the less hard-line Tuesday Group), health insurance companies would still be prohibited from refusing to sell insurance to people with pre-existing conditions. That said, the bill would permit states to apply for waivers which could severely undercut another key component of Obamacare's protections for people with such conditions: the requirement that they not be charged more. Under the latest version of Trumpcare, states getting those waivers could free insurance companies there from community rating requirements – which require that companies charge the same rates for people of the same age – for people who have not maintained continuous coverage.




That provision would allow insurers to dramatically increase costs for people with pre-existing conditions, making moot the question of whether the companies have to offer them insurance. The theoretical ability to buy insurance doesn't make much difference if that coverage is, as a practical matter, too expensive. A cancer patient isn't likely to appreciate the fact that a plan is required to be available if that plan is too pricey for them.



As the Kaiser Family Foundation's Larry Levitt put it to the Huffington Post last month: "This effectively allows states to eliminate the [Affordable Care Act]'s guarantee of access to insurance at a reasonable price for people with pre-existing conditions, in the interest of lowering premiums for people who are healthy." A study last month from the liberal Center for American Progress estimated that the proposal would mean premium increases of tens of thousands of dollars for people with pre-existing conditions.



Trump also argues that the bill would create high-risk pools, which would take care of people with pre-existing conditions. But past experience tells us that those pools do not work as he advertises.



So no, the law would not cover pre-existing conditions "beautifully." This is a critical problem not simply for reasons of politics (because protections for people with pre-existing conditions are incredibly popular) but also, and more importantly, for reasons of real life. This is life and death for people.




Of course, pre-existing conditions weren't the only area where Trump evinced confusion during the interview. He said, for example, that deductibles would go down under his plan (they wouldn't, according to the Congressional Budget Office) and he said (and then walked back) that it would allow insurers to sell across state lines. Trump's manifest ignorance and/or confusion prompted this from Andy Slavitt, who used to run the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services:



The ultimate fate of Trumpcare could be decided this week. House leaders and Trump administration officials are increasingly confident they'll manage to push it through Congress' lower chamber, though The Hill's whip count has 21 Republicans voting against, with 22 being the figure which would sink the bill. The few undecideds left will be under extraordinary pressure not simply from the unpopular president and the extremists in their conference, but also from a public which detests the bill.

So too do the major medical groups and other experts who, as The Los Angeles Times reported last week, are getting shut out of the process. "They're not interested in how health policy actually works," one health insurance official told the paper. This is sure to end well.



https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.us...are-cover-pre-existing-conditions?context=amp

 

[Pulledclear]

This is hilarious

Is

it funnier than the Obamacare fiasco? Caucasian please.

 

[919]

Got anymore tweets from trump or spicer who obviously are lying?

 

[919]

On Sunday, President Trump told John Dickerson on CBS’s “Face the Nation” that any health-care bill he would support would “guarantee” protection for people with preexisting conditions. “Preexisting conditions are in the bill,” he declared. “And I mandate it. I said, ‘Has to be.’ ” Politico, like a number of outlets, pointed out that this is a “shift from language in the Republican replacement bill circulating in the House.” That will surprise Republicans whipping the vote. (CNN noted, “The amendment would allow states to seek waivers to weaken several key Obamacare insurance reforms that protect those with pre-existing conditions, including the benefits insurers must cover in their policies and the ban on allowing carriers to charge more based on a person’s health background.”)

Moreover, Trump suggested that the bill is still changing. This, too, should come as a shock to House Republicans, who thought they reached a final deal last week that gives states the right to opt out of several of the Obamacare protections.

​

It is not clear if Trump is confused about what is in the bill or thinks the negotiations should continue until his “mandate” (which is the Obamacare mandate, to be clear) is secured. If what he is referring to is the provision that says states can opt out of equal treatment for those with preexisting conditions (so-called community ratings), then the amendment authored by Reps. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) and Tom MacArthur (R-N.J.) fails. Their amendment says that states can opt out of the protection for preexisting coverage if they have a so-called high-risk pool. But there is no limit on what those pools can charge, nor is there a federal guarantee of funding. (The bill provides $15 billion but does not say what happens if that money runs out.)

Trump also insists that premiums will go down. (In Trumpcare, many of Trump’s own voters — older and rural Americans — will pay more.) Perhaps if aides put a map in front of him, as they did with the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), showing how many of his supporters would be adversely affected, he would change his mind.

To be fair, Trump is not the only Republican confused about high-risk pools. House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) often asserts that high-risk pools are the solution to coverage for individuals with preexisting conditions. Nothing in the experience of these pools suggests that this is the case, however. Kaiser Health News reported last November:

More than half of state high-risk insurance pools have closed in the past few years, according to data from the National Association of State Comprehensive Health Insurance Plans (NASCHIP). In other state-run high-risk pools, new enrollment has stopped and overall participation has dropped, the data showed. Premiums ranged from 125% to 200% of the average individual market rate in a given state, according to NASCHIP. …​

“High-risk pools segregate sick people into plans that are more expensive to both the government and the individual,” said Anthony Wright of Health Access, a coalition of consumer advocates.​

Wright said the high-risk pools were among the “failures” in the health care system that led to Obamacare.​

The experience in California was illustrative. Not only did costs soar, but also gigantic waiting lists formed and the coverage included many limitations that Obamacare currently prohibits (e.g. annual and lifetime limits).

​

Now if you mandated that the pools could not charge more than the average rate in the state and provided a funding stream to guarantee coverage, that would be a different matter. But it would also be ferociously expensive, and in the language of Obamacare critics, set up a “new entitlement.”

House Republicans and the president do not appear to be on the same page. If Trump “mandates” protection for preexisting conditions and says his bill must lower premiums, the latest bill does not do it. Someone should tell the president — or tell House Republicans to keep negotiating.

​

---

Jennifer Rubin writes the Right Turn blog for The Post, offering reported opinion from a conservative perspective.

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[919]

Is

it funnier than the Obamacare fiasco? Caucasian please.

Trump has no idea what is even in the bill. Also, the republicans control everything and are still struggling to pass legislation.

 

[919]

Bloomberg Politics
@bpolitics
[h=1].@RepFredUpton just said he'll oppose the health bill. Here's why that's big trouble for the GOP: [/h]

 

[919]

If Republicans Can’t Get This Lawmaker, Obamacare Repeal May Be Dead

by Arit John
and Billy House
April 28, 2017, 3:23 PM EDT

• An architect of previous years’ repeal bills not ready to back
• Vote count could be close as backers claim ‘great progress’

Representative Fred Upton, a Republican from Michigan, listens during a House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing in Washington on Oct. 30, 2013.Representative Fred Upton helped guide dozens of Obamacare repeal measures through the House in recent years, but he has deep reservations about the GOP’s current bill.

“I’m not comfortable with it and I told the leadership that,” he said Friday, in a vivid illustration of the continuing obstacles to the GOP effort to resurrect its stalled repeal plan.

Until five months ago, Upton, a Michigan Republican, chaired the Energy and Commerce Committee, which has jurisdiction over much of health care policy. Now, he’s not ready to support the current bill and said the most recent revisions have made it worse.

​

Skepticism from Upton and other Republican moderates led GOP leaders to abandon an effort to hold a vote on the bill this week. Leaders say they’re still hopeful it can be passed next week.

Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy and other House leaders downplayed the delay, saying they’d never publicly said there would be a vote this week. "We’ve been making great progress, and when we have the votes we’ll vote on it," he said.
The new GOP strategy to replace Obamacare: a QuickTake Q&A

House Speaker Paul Ryan and other GOP leaders wouldn’t say how many more Republican votes they need to win, although several prior holdouts in the conservative House Freedom Caucus now publicly back the bill.

“Right now we know we’re in a stronger position than we were, but we don’t know for sure if we have the votes," said Representative Tom Cole of Oklahoma, who isn’t a member of the caucus.

​

A Bloomberg News count shows at least 16 Republicans oppose the revised measure, not including Upton. The GOP can only afford to lose 22 votes from its side and still guarantee passage.

One problem is that the recent changes made to the bill to win over the conservative holdouts have alienated some GOP moderates.

• An architect of previous years’ repeal bills not ready to back
• Vote count could be close as backers claim ‘great progress’

Representative Fred Upton, a Republican from Michigan, listens during a House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing in Washington on Oct. 30, 2013.

Representative Fred Upton helped guide dozens of Obamacare repeal measures through the House in recent years, but he has deep reservations about the GOP’s current bill.

“I’m not comfortable with it and I told the leadership that,” he said Friday, in a vivid illustration of the continuing obstacles to the GOP effort to resurrect its stalled repeal plan.

Until five months ago, Upton, a Michigan Republican, chaired the Energy and Commerce Committee, which has jurisdiction over much of health care policy. Now, he’s not ready to support the current bill and said the most recent revisions have made it worse.

​

Skepticism from Upton and other Republican moderates led GOP leaders to abandon an effort to hold a vote on the bill this week. Leaders say they’re still hopeful it can be passed next week.

Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy and other House leaders downplayed the delay, saying they’d never publicly said there would be a vote this week. "We’ve been making great progress, and when we have the votes we’ll vote on it," he said.

The new GOP strategy to replace Obamacare: a QuickTake Q&A

House Speaker Paul Ryan and other GOP leaders wouldn’t say how many more Republican votes they need to win, although several prior holdouts in the conservative House Freedom Caucus now publicly back the bill.

“Right now we know we’re in a stronger position than we were, but we don’t know for sure if we have the votes," said Representative Tom Cole of Oklahoma, who isn’t a member of the caucus.

​

A Bloomberg News count shows at least 16 Republicans oppose the revised measure, not including Upton. The GOP can only afford to lose 22 votes from its side and still guarantee passage.

One problem is that the recent changes made to the bill to win over the conservative holdouts have alienated some GOP moderates.

Pre-Existing Conditions


Upton, for example, said his main concern is how those revisions affect coverage for people with pre-existing medical conditions.

“The issue is potential higher costs to those with pre-existing illnesses," he said. "They’re trying to say that they still maintain access with continuous coverage but the question is what happens on the costs side of the thing.”

Under an amendment to the Republican plan, states could let insurers charge older customers more than the original bill allowed -- at least five times more than younger ones, beginning in 2018. States could also allow insurers to charge higher premiums for people with pre-existing conditions who have had a gap in coverage of at least 63 days in the prior year.

Upton said he has been talking to Representative Tom MacArthur of New Jersey, the author of the amendment, about making more changes.

"I’ll go back to the premise that Ryan has, and that is if they have the votes, they’ll move it. So, clearly they don’t have the votes," he said.

Many House Republican supporters of the measure insisted Friday that they are just a few votes shy -- and that a vote could come, for real, as early as next week.

"Oh it’s absolutely not dead -- they are very close," insisted Representative Chris Collins of New York, one of the earliest congressional Trump backers.

Democrats have been left out of the process entirely.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi on Friday called the GOP health bill "the zombie" that she says keeps getting worse. She credited mobilization against the bill from outside of Congress for slowing down the Republican effort.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York asked, "How many more times do they need to fail" before working with Democrats on needed fixes to the Affordable Care Act.

 

[919]

I will patiently wait for superbeets posting the tweetstorm from Trump and Spicer stating again that pre-existing conditions are covered, despite all of the above...

 

[919]

12mSteven Dennis
@StevenTDennis
[h=1]Upton told leadership he won't back AHCA w/new language on pre-existing conditions: [/h]

 

[919]

Jennifer Rubin
@JRubinBlogger





why GOP health-care bill losing (link: [url]http://wapo.st/2pBpshL?tid=ss_tw) wapo.st/2pBpshL?tid=ss…[/URL] rep. Long's surprise defection shows GOP leaders have no idea how conference feels

 

[919]

What a jackass






42mSteven Dennis
@StevenTDennis
[h=1]Kind of our business to ask, Congressman. [/h]Cristina Marcos
@cimarcosReporters ask Rep. Issa his position on the revised healthcare bill. "None of your business," he says.

 

[919]

[h=1]Senate GOP frets House could blow it on Obamacare[/h]By BURGESS EVERETT
05/02/17 06:30 PM EDT

Sen. Rand Paul spent much of March attacking the House GOP’s effort as “Obamacare-lite.” He doesn’t like the latest plan, either, but is generally holding his fire. | Getty

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Senate Republicans are backing off their criticism of the House Republicans’ Obamacare repeal proposal, wary of the consequences that a second failure would have for the party’s quest to gut the law.


Compared with the Senate GOP’s open attempts to sink the previous effort by House Republicans, senators have been relatively muted this time. There’ve been no blistering statements from conservative Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas, Mike Lee of Utah and Rand Paul of Kentucky, nor has Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas done a media tour warning that House members could lose their seats for supporting the legislation.

Story Continued Below
​

The shift by Paul is especially striking. The libertarian-minded Republican spent much of March attacking the House GOP’s effort as “Obamacare-lite.” He doesn’t like the latest plan, either, but is generally holding his fire.

“I think they’re going to pass something this time. I think it’s heading in that direction. I think the Freedom Caucus has made it less bad. I’m not sure it’s as good as it needs to be,” Paul said.


There’s a growing recognition among Republican senators that failure in the House this time around would mean that the GOP is blowing its best and perhaps only shot at repealing Obamacare, which was once pegged as the easiest win on the agenda because Republicans can gut the law via a simple majority vote. As Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) put it Tuesday: “We don’t want to give up on this.”


“People are coming to a conclusion that it’s pretty important at some point we legislate on this. We’ve got to deliver,” said Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.). “People are starting to calm down a little bit and tone down some of the rhetoric. … If we’re going to get a solution, all of us are going to have to figure out a constructive way to make that happen.”

[h=3]Trump on health care: ‘I think it’s time now’[/h]By MADELINE CONWAY


Instead of privately hoping for failure, various factions of Republican senators are preparing to overhaul the House bill, even as the lower chamber’s effort appears more imperiled by the hour. Thune is preparing a proposal to make tax credits in the bill more generous, while Cruz, Lee, Cotton and Sens. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, Rob Portman of Ohio and Cory Gardner of Colorado have quietly created a working group to tackle the difficult problem of how quickly to curb Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion.

But all that is moot if it fails in the House. “I just hope the House gets the damn thing done,” said Sen. Pat Roberts of Kansas.

“Getting that bill out of there no matter what it says or what’s in it should probably be the No. 1 priority of the House leadership,” said a Republican senator. “If you’re a House leader, [the Senate] is probably not what you should be worrying about on health care.”

Senators face a tough task if the House ends up sending them a bill: They want to ease up on Medicaid cuts, preserve protections for people with pre-existing conditions and make tax credits more generous. And they have to make sure the bill can pass the Senate’s strict budgetary rules so repeal can be approved on a party line vote.

Republican senators whose support would be vital say they’ll need major changes to the House’s legislation to get behind it.

“My concern is they aren’t doing enough on expanded Medicaid. So I prefer that they fix that before sending it to us,” Portman said. “They want to cut it off in 2020; we want a longer runway.”

“There’s some concerns there,” Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) said of preserving protections for people with pre-existing conditions. “I’m hoping we don’t rush it.”

 

[superbeets]

[FONT=&quot]The White House
Office of the Press Secretary

For Immediate Release

May 02, 2017​

[/FONT]
[h=1]ICYMI: WSJ Ed Board on How AHCA Covers People with Pre-Existing Conditions[/h]
[FONT=&quot]

“Liberals are inflating the pre-existing conditions panic with images of patients pushed out to sea on ice floes, but the GOP plan will ensure everyone can get the care they need.”​

Pre-Existing Confusion
Editorial
Wall Street Journal
May 2, 2017
Here’s how the House health reform will cover high-risk patients.
…
House conservatives rebelled over the original version of the American Health Care Act, which only partially deregulated insurance markets. The bill maintained the rule known as guaranteed issue, which requires insurers to cover all applicants regardless of medical history. It also relaxed community rating, which limits how much premiums can vary among beneficiaries.
The media and the left thus claim that conservatives want to allow insurers to charge sick people more, and some conservatives agree, which spooks the moderates. But the latest compromise between conservatives and centrists doesn’t repeal guaranteed issue or community rating. It keeps these regulations as the default baseline, and states could apply for a federal waiver if they want to pursue other regulatory relief.
But the waivers aren’t a license to leave cancer survivors without insurance. States can only receive a waiver if they avail themselves of the bill’s $100 billion fund to set up high-risk pools. These state-based programs, which were run in 35 states until they were pre-empted by ObamaCare, subsidize coverage for older and sicker patients. This helps these individuals and keeps coverage cheaper for everyone else.
Why might a Governor prefer such an arrangement over the ObamaCare status quo? Well, the law’s price controls are a raw deal for most consumers, which leads to a cycle of rising premiums and falling enrollment. Average premiums rose by 40% or more in 11 states this year, and insurance markets in states like Tennessee, Kentucky and Minnesota are in crisis.
Community rating and guaranteed issue also punish the sick by degrading quality. When insurers can profit by being the best plan for, say, cancer or diabetes, they invest in such care. When both the healthy and sick pay the same rates, the incentive is to load up on healthier people and discourage people with expensive ailments or chronic conditions from enrolling by using higher copays, narrow provider networks or tiered prescription drug formularies.
…
High-risk pools are a fairer and more equitable solution to this social problem, rather than hiding the cost by forcing other people to pay premiums that are artificially higher than the value of the product. The waivers also include protections for people who renew continuous coverage from major premium increases if they become ill.
Liberals are inflating the pre-existing conditions panic with images of patients pushed out to sea on ice floes, but the GOP plan will ensure everyone can get the care they need.



[/FONT]

 

[919]

The White House
Office of the Press Secretary

For Immediate Release

May 02, 2017​

ICYMI: WSJ Ed Board on How AHCA Covers People with Pre-Existing Conditions

“Liberals are inflating the pre-existing conditions panic with images of patients pushed out to sea on ice floes, but the GOP plan will ensure everyone can get the care they need.”​

Pre-Existing Confusion
Editorial
Wall Street Journal
May 2, 2017
Here’s how the House health reform will cover high-risk patients.
…
House conservatives rebelled over the original version of the American Health Care Act, which only partially deregulated insurance markets. The bill maintained the rule known as guaranteed issue, which requires insurers to cover all applicants regardless of medical history. It also relaxed community rating, which limits how much premiums can vary among beneficiaries.
The media and the left thus claim that conservatives want to allow insurers to charge sick people more, and some conservatives agree, which spooks the moderates. But the latest compromise between conservatives and centrists doesn’t repeal guaranteed issue or community rating. It keeps these regulations as the default baseline, and states could apply for a federal waiver if they want to pursue other regulatory relief.
But the waivers aren’t a license to leave cancer survivors without insurance. States can only receive a waiver if they avail themselves of the bill’s $100 billion fund to set up high-risk pools. These state-based programs, which were run in 35 states until they were pre-empted by ObamaCare, subsidize coverage for older and sicker patients. This helps these individuals and keeps coverage cheaper for everyone else.
Why might a Governor prefer such an arrangement over the ObamaCare status quo? Well, the law’s price controls are a raw deal for most consumers, which leads to a cycle of rising premiums and falling enrollment. Average premiums rose by 40% or more in 11 states this year, and insurance markets in states like Tennessee, Kentucky and Minnesota are in crisis.
Community rating and guaranteed issue also punish the sick by degrading quality. When insurers can profit by being the best plan for, say, cancer or diabetes, they invest in such care. When both the healthy and sick pay the same rates, the incentive is to load up on healthier people and discourage people with expensive ailments or chronic conditions from enrolling by using higher copays, narrow provider networks or tiered prescription drug formularies.
…
High-risk pools are a fairer and more equitable solution to this social problem, rather than hiding the cost by forcing other people to pay premiums that are artificially higher than the value of the product. The waivers also include protections for people who renew continuous coverage from major premium increases if they become ill.
Liberals are inflating the pre-existing conditions panic with images of patients pushed out to sea on ice floes, but the GOP plan will ensure everyone can get the care they need.

This is effectively putting your fingers in your ears and yelling "nananananananana" as to avoid hearing the truth.

so now Fred Upton is a liberal. Who knew...lol

 

[919]

The White House
Office of the Press Secretary

For Immediate Release

May 02, 2017​

ICYMI: WSJ Ed Board on How AHCA Covers People with Pre-Existing Conditions

“Liberals are inflating the pre-existing conditions panic with images of patients pushed out to sea on ice floes, but the GOP plan will ensure everyone can get the care they need.”​

Pre-Existing Confusion
Editorial
Wall Street Journal
May 2, 2017
Here’s how the House health reform will cover high-risk patients.
…
House conservatives rebelled over the original version of the American Health Care Act, which only partially deregulated insurance markets. The bill maintained the rule known as guaranteed issue, which requires insurers to cover all applicants regardless of medical history. It also relaxed community rating, which limits how much premiums can vary among beneficiaries.
The media and the left thus claim that conservatives want to allow insurers to charge sick people more, and some conservatives agree, which spooks the moderates. But the latest compromise between conservatives and centrists doesn’t repeal guaranteed issue or community rating. It keeps these regulations as the default baseline, and states could apply for a federal waiver if they want to pursue other regulatory relief.
But the waivers aren’t a license to leave cancer survivors without insurance. States can only receive a waiver if they avail themselves of the bill’s $100 billion fund to set up high-risk pools. These state-based programs, which were run in 35 states until they were pre-empted by ObamaCare, subsidize coverage for older and sicker patients. This helps these individuals and keeps coverage cheaper for everyone else.
Why might a Governor prefer such an arrangement over the ObamaCare status quo? Well, the law’s price controls are a raw deal for most consumers, which leads to a cycle of rising premiums and falling enrollment. Average premiums rose by 40% or more in 11 states this year, and insurance markets in states like Tennessee, Kentucky and Minnesota are in crisis.
Community rating and guaranteed issue also punish the sick by degrading quality. When insurers can profit by being the best plan for, say, cancer or diabetes, they invest in such care. When both the healthy and sick pay the same rates, the incentive is to load up on healthier people and discourage people with expensive ailments or chronic conditions from enrolling by using higher copays, narrow provider networks or tiered prescription drug formularies.
…
High-risk pools are a fairer and more equitable solution to this social problem, rather than hiding the cost by forcing other people to pay premiums that are artificially higher than the value of the product. The waivers also include protections for people who renew continuous coverage from major premium increases if they become ill.
Liberals are inflating the pre-existing conditions panic with images of patients pushed out to sea on ice floes, but the GOP plan will ensure everyone can get the care they need.

Durrrr


Republicans are making last-minute changes to their health care bill Tuesday night, as President Donald Trump tries to rally support for the troubled measure in a final flurry of tweaks and calls to get 216 votes.


Senior Capitol Hill and White House officials said the changes being discussed would address concerns from moderates about how the legislation would treat individuals with pre-existing conditions. Earlier in the day, multiple sources said House leadership floated the idea of adding more money to high-risk pools aimed at subsidizing more expensive premiums for people with such medical conditions.

Story Continued Below​

​

The amendments are expected to circulate Wednesday. Officials said they were being finalized late Tuesday.

It was not clear Tuesday night, however, if the amendment would include new funds, though one White House official indicated it would.

Some White House officials want a vote on the bill on Thursday, but bringing the bill to the floor will be up to Speaker Paul Ryan and Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy. Two senior White House officials said they feared members leaving for recess without voting could doom eventual passage, but many in Congress have grown frustrated with the White House's timetables.



[h=3]Obamacare repeal's biggest obstacle? Sick people[/h]By JENNIFER HABERKORN


More amendments are possible in the next 24 hours, two senior officials said, but the changes "can't be that significant, or we will lose the support from the Freedom Caucus," one of these officials said.


Trump made at least a dozen phone calls seeking support for the bill Tuesday. Capitol Hill and administration officials said he will host lawmakers at the White House on Wednesday. The White House is hoping for an endorsement from some lawmakers after the visit.


Whether the changes will win over enough moderates is unclear. Rep. Fred Upton, an influential Republican, said on Tuesday he could not support the bill, a significant defection. And Upton later said he wouldn't back the bill even with more high-risk pools money.


“We’re tweaking, floating verbiage and stuff. We’re not changing the bill in a major way. There is some discussion to get everybody together," said Rep. Joe Barton. "Sometime this summer we'll put a bill on the president's desk."


But others are less optimistic, given the previous failed vote. And any bill will still need Senate approval, where the body is likely to rewrite the bill.

 

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[FONT=atiza_textregular]The House is about to give it one more try with the Republican health care bill. Rep. Fred Upton will introduce an amendment that would provide $8 billion over five years to help protect people with pre-existing conditions, an attempt to bring moderate holdouts to the table.


What the amendment does: It's a fund to pay the penalty for not being previously insured for those who get priced out from the market based on health status.


What spooked moderates: An amendment by Rep. Tom MacArthur that would allow states, in limited circumstances, to waive the Affordable Care Act's essential health benefits and ban on charging sick people higher premiums. People with pre-existing conditions could only be charged more based on health status if they had a lapse in health coverage, so these would be the people helped by Upton's amendment.


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[FONT=atiza_textregular]President Trump, VP Pence and Paul Ryan teamed up to call undecided House members yesterday, lobbying them to support the revised bill. A staff member for a wavering member told Axios his boss had heard from all three of them.


Early Wednesday morning, well-placed sources in the White House and in the House Republican conference told us the momentum was driving towards a vote on Thursday. The White House has been more bullish all along, and senior House sources have been consistently exasperated at administration officials setting artificial deadlines.


Senior House lawmakers remain concerned about the potential for the new, more moderate, language to unnerve the ultra conservative House Freedom Caucus members. Members like Jim Jordan were reluctant to sign onto the original MacArthur amendment, and could easily be lost.
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[Dave007inVegas]

I will patiently wait for superbeets posting the tweetstorm from Trump and Spicer stating again that pre-existing conditions are covered, despite all of the above...

My, how things have changed. We used to live rent free in vits and goosers heads.
Now beets lives rent free in yours.

 

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My, how things have changed. We used to live rent free in vits and goosers heads.
Now beets lives rent free in yours.

Do you normally exaggerate this much based on a post? Or just for me