Tag: Trumpcare

🚨🚨 Republicans Eye Another ACA Repeal Vote 🚨🚨

Despite the fact that a majority of Americans oppose Trump and Republicans’ health care sabotage, Republicans are eyeing yet another Affordable Care Act repeal vote if the midterm elections go their way.

Republicans are eyeing another vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act if the midterms go their way.

Axios: “Republicans eye another ACA repeal vote if midterms go their way”

Axios: “Many Republicans assume their party will take another stab at repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act if the midterm elections go their way, even though GOP candidates aren’t making a big deal about it on the campaign trail.”

A majority of voters oppose Trump and Republicans’ sabotage. It’s clear why voters trust Democrats more on health care.

  • Voters trust Democrats over Republicans and President Trump on health care by 13 points.
  • By an overwhelming 25 points, voters say they want to keep and improve on the ACA, not repeal it.
  • A majority of voters support a generic Democratic candidate who supports the ACA and wants to improve it over a generic Republican candidate who wants to repeal it.
  • Only 19 percent of voters support the Trump’s decision to join a lawsuit seeking to strike down the ACA’s protections for people with pre-existing conditions.

Democrats Push Senate to Take Legal Action Backing Pre-existing Condition Protections

The following article by Niels Lesniewski was posted on the Roll Call website July 19, 2018:

McCaskill and Manchin among leaders of the effort

Sen. Manchin, D-W.Va., shakes hands with Atty General Morrisey, who is also running for U.S. Senate. The two are on opposite sides of a debate over pre-existing conditions that could become a part of their campaigns. Credit: Sarah Silbiger, CQ Roll Call file photo

Updated 3:15 p.m. | In a possible preview of Senate Democrats’ midterm political messaging, Democratic senators want the chamber to go to court to defend health insurance protections for people with pre-existing conditions.

Two of the Democrats leading the effort face Republican challengers in 2018 who have signed on to the legal effort that could undermine the regulations from the 2010 health care law: state attorneys general in Missouri, Josh Hawley, and West Virginia, Patrick Morrisey.

“We’re asking all of our colleagues, and our friends on the Republican side of the aisle to join with us … to stand up against this horrible, horrible position that the attorneys general offices in my state and Claire’s state, but also the Department of Justice,” West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin III said Thursday.

View the complete article here.

Administration slashes grants to help Americans get Affordable Care Act coverage

The following article by Amy Goldstein was posted on the Washington Post website July 10, 2018:

President Trump’s health-care actions could have ripple effects throughout the Affordable Care Act’s marketplaces. (Video: Jenny Starrs/Photo: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

The Trump administration is eliminating most of the funding for grass-roots groups that help Americans get Affordable Care Act insurance and will for the first time urge the groups to promote health plans that bypass the law’s consumer protections and required benefits.

The reduction — the second round of cuts that began last summer — will shrink the federal money devoted to the groups, known as navigators, from $36.8 million to $10 million for the enrollment period that starts in November.

Last August, federal health officials announced that they werereducing the navigators’ aid by 41 percent, from $62.5 million, and slashing by 90 percent a related budget for advertising and other outreach activities to foster ACA enrollment.

View the complete article on the Washington Post website here.

Democrats Fight Back Against Trump’s Health Care Sabotage

Americans trust Democrats over Republicans to address rising health care costs by a 14-point margin. It’s clear why: Half of Americans are already struggling to afford health care this year. Instead of working to reduce costs, Trump and Republican are enacting policies that are causing health care premiums to skyrocket, but Democrats are fighting back.

Democrats are fighting back against Trump’s efforts to take away protections for people with pre-existing conditions.

The Hill: “Dems pressure GOP to take legal action supporting pre-existing conditions”

Continue reading “Democrats Fight Back Against Trump’s Health Care Sabotage”

Trump administration takes another major swipe at the Affordable Care Act

The following article by Amy Goldstein was posted on the Washington Post website July 7, 2018:

Seema Verma, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, listens during a meeting on healthcare reform. Credit: Jabin Botsford, The Washington Post)</em.

The Trump administration took another major swipe at the Affordable Care Act, halting billions of dollars in annual payments required under the law to even out the cost to insurers whose customers need expensive medical services.

In a rare Saturday afternoon announcement, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said it will stop collecting and paying out money under the ACA’s “risk adjustment” program, drawing swift protest from the health insurance industry.

Risk adjustment is one of three methods built into the 2010 health-care law to help insulate insurance companies from the ACA requirement that they accept all customers for the first time — healthy and sick — without charging more to those who need substantial care.

View the complete post on the Washington Post website here.

A Fatal Flaw as Trump Tries to Remake Health Care: Shortcuts

The following article by Robert Pear was posted on the New York Times website July 7, 2018:

A Planned Parenthood clinic in Arizona. While the Trump administration has suffered a series of court setbacks on health care, that does not mean its efforts have reached a dead end. On the hot-button topic of Planned Parenthood, the lower courts are divided. Credit: Laura Segall, Agence France-Presse, Getty Images

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is on a losing streak in court cases challenging its efforts to abruptly change health care policy, but the naming of a new Supreme Court justice could alter the trajectory on some of the most controversial cases, from funding Planned Parenthood to mandating contraceptive coverage.

The cases that the administration has lost have had a common theme: Federal judges have found that the administration cut corners in trying to advance its political priorities.

Most recently, a federal district judge said the administration had acted unlawfully in approving work requirements for the state Medicaid program in Kentucky.

View the complete post on the New York Times website here.

Moving Backward

The following article by Theresa Chalhoub, Aditya Krishnaswamy and the National Partnership for Women and Families was posted on the Center for American Progress Progress website June 21, 2018:

Efforts to Undo Pre-Existing Condition Protections Put Millions of Women and Girls at Risk

A mother and her child visit the doctor, October 2013. Credit: GettyBSIP/UIG

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) prohibits discriminatory insurance practices in pricing and coverage in the individual market. Before the law was enacted, women routinely were denied coverage or charged more for insurance based on so-called pre-existing conditions. For example, in the individual insurance market, a woman could be denied coverage or charged a higher premium if she had been diagnosed with or experienced HIV or AIDS; diabetes; lupus; an eating disorder; or pregnancy or a previous cesarean birth, just to name a few. The ACA provided women with protections for pre-existing conditions and access to comprehensive, affordable, and fair health services. Continue reading “Moving Backward”

Health Care Sabotage

Donald Trump and his administration continue their attack on health care:

Trump suspended a program that helps stabilize health insurance markets

In its latest effort to sabotage the working Affordable Care Act, the Trump administration is suspending ACA risk adjustment payments.  These payments actively encourage insurers to participate in the exchanges and cover sicker patients who need more care, not just young and healthy people.  The Trump administration’s move injects uncertainty into the insurance market and could drive up premiums for next year.

Trump’s sabotage of the ACA is increasing premiums

Trump and Republicans have failed to deliver on their promises of making health care more affordable and accessible. In reality, their ongoing sabotage of the ACA has caused premiums to increase and increased the ranks of the uninsured. Continue reading “Health Care Sabotage”

The New Obamacare Lawsuit Could Undo Far More Than Protections for Pre-existing Conditions

The following article by Margot Sanger-Katz was posted on the New York Times website June 12, 2018:

Removing two rules from the individual market could very easily disrupt many others.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Capitol Hill in April. The Justice Department has filed suit challenging a crucial provision of the Affordable Care Act. Credit: Andrew Harnik, AP

A new Trump administration court challenge is explicitly aiming to remove a central promise of Obamacare — its protections for people with pre-existing health conditions. But it could also make it much harder for any individual to obtain health insurance on the open market.

The administration’s brief, filed in Federal District Court in Texas on Thursday, focuses on the core Obamacare provisions that make insurance available to people with prior illnesses. Those protections — which President Trump once praised and Republicans in Congress vowed not to disrupt last year — don’t exist in a vacuum. Continue reading “The New Obamacare Lawsuit Could Undo Far More Than Protections for Pre-existing Conditions”

How a Republican Idea for Reducing Medicare Costs Could Affect You

The following article by Austin Frakt was posted on the New York TImes website October 30, 2017:

Credit: Lennard Kok

Last month, as Republican leaders were preoccupied with another unsuccessful attempt to replace Obamacare, a senior Trump administration official issued a warning about a different major medical program, Medicare.

The official, Seema Verma, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, wrote in The Wall Street Journal that Medicare was facing a fiscal crisis. She announced that she was asking the agency’s innovation center for ideas to address it, and that part of the answer was to give consumers “incentives to be cost-conscious.” This has some Democrats worried that she’s trying to move Medicare toward something called premium support, which would be a huge change for consumers.

Before we get into the pros and cons, what’s the fiscal crisis? According to projections from this year’s Medicare Trustees’ report, the fund that pays for Medicare-financed hospital care will be depleted in 12 years, and care for other services will consume an ever-larger share of the economy and federal revenue. Citing trends like those, Republicans included the outlines of a Medicare premium support plan in the House of Representatives’ fiscal year 2018 budget resolution, as they did in several prior ones. Continue reading “How a Republican Idea for Reducing Medicare Costs Could Affect You”