Sunday, August 27, 2017 8:53:11 PM
How the G.O.P. Sabotaged Obamacare
"JimLur, Maria56 - How Republicans quietly sabotaged Obamacare long before Trump came into office
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=129961788
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=130441119 "
.. remember .. on seeing any article re insurance companies pulling out of Obamacare,
Largest Hospital System in N.Y. Drops Obamacare Plans Citing Major Losses
http://www.oann.com/largest-hospital-system-in-n-y-drops-obamacare-plans-citing-major-losses/
such as that one, we must all remember to see in it the fact that most GOP politicians, with other conservatives and libertarians, have sabotaged Obamacare from it's inception .. a couple of days ago i was pmmed the above article by a conservative, hence this 2nd NYT post .. the guilty should be held to account for their sabotage of Obamacare and for their deceit in saying it is "“collapsing under its own weight”" .. fact is it isn't "“collapsing under its own weight”" .. Obamacare is limping in places because it's been shot in the foot .. it's hurting in places because money due it has been withheld .. the GOP must be held accountable for sticking to it's socially irresponsible model to "repeal and replace", rather than accomplishing a more socially responsible act path of fixing Obamacare where it needs fixing.
By ABBE R. GLUCKMAY 25, 2017
Obamacare is not “collapsing under its own weight,” as Republicans are so fond of saying. It was sabotaged from the day it was enacted. And now the Republican Party should be held accountable not only for any potential replacement of the law, but also for having tried to starve it to death.
The Congressional Budget Office on Wednesday released its accounting of the House Republicans’ replacement bill for the Affordable Care Act, and the numbers are not pretty: It is projected to leave 23 million more Americans uninsured over 10 years, through deep cuts to insurance subsidies and Medicaid. The report underscores how the bill would cut taxes for the rich to take health care away from the less well-off.
The A.C.A. is not perfect, and improvements to it would be welcome. But it worked in many respects and would have worked much better had Congress been a faithful guardian of the law.
It is worth making a record of those Republican saboteurs’ efforts. The A.C.A.’s opponents brought a lawsuit against its requirement that people buy insurance — a Republican idea — the very day the statute was signed into law. The Supreme Court rejected that claim. But the court gave opponents a major victory on another front, ruling that Obamacare’s expansion of Medicaid was optional for states. Yet another lawsuit seized on some sloppy language in the law to make the implausible argument that Congress did not provide for the insurance subsidies on which the law depends. The Supreme Court also rejected that challenge.
But if the Republicans lost those cases, they succeeded in sowing the insurance markets with doubt and forcing states to slow down implementation while awaiting the court’s decisions. That in turn may have reduced sign-ups, further destabilizing the insurance market. The second case challenging the subsidies was not decided until 2015, more than a year after the statute’s critical 2014 deadline for implementation.
Related Coverage [1 of 7]
The Best Replacement for Obamacare Is Medicaid MAY 18, 2017
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/18/opinion/obamacare-repeal-medicaid.html
Even worse, these lawsuits helped make the A.C.A. the salient partisan issue of the Obama administration, turning the law into the ultimate Republican litmus test: Implementing a state insurance exchange or expanding Medicaid, even when it seemed in a state’s interest, became treasonous for the party. Nevertheless, about a dozen principled Republican governors bucked their party and expanded their programs.
Health insurance executives summoned by House Republicans to a hearing on the Affordable Care Act in 2014. Credit Stephen Crowley/The New York Times
In 2014, the House brought a lawsuit, arguing that a critical piece of A.C.A. funding — the cost-sharing subsidies that pay insurers to lower premiums — had not been properly appropriated. For insurers, not knowing whether that money could be cut off — President Trump is still threatening not to pay them — has caused anxiety about whether to remain in the A.C.A. markets. More than 100 other suits have been filed, including challenges to contraception provisions and the requirement that employers provide insurance.
On the political front, the Republicans targeted provisions of the law that provided crucial transitional financing to steady the insurance markets early in the program. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, calling the money an insurance “bailout,” sponsored a measure that prevented appropriation of some of those funds. The courts have issued mixed rulings on whether the federal government must pay, adding yet more instability to the insurance markets.
The Affordable Care Act, like any major statute, surely could use adjustments. For example, the insurance subsidies were probably set too low initially. The Obama administration’s decision to allow more people to stay on their old plans than originally expected may also have narrowed the new pool of insurance customers in ways that contributed to premium hikes. The Republican-controlled House never provided any additional implementation money after the initial appropriation set forth in the Affordable Care Act itself, forcing the Department of Health and Human Services to scrounge for needed funds.
A caretaking Congress would have fixed what wasn’t working. Instead, opponents did everything possible to shut off all the A.C.A.’s financing — starvation intended to wreak havoc in the insurance markets and to make it falsely appear that the A.C.A.was collapsing because it was just bad policy.
The irony is that the A.C.A. was vulnerable to this strategy because the Democrats had tried to compromise with the Republicans in an ultimately unsuccessful effort to build bipartisan support for the law. If the Democrats had instead enacted a single-payer policy — such as Medicare for all — the entire health care system would have been in the hands of the federal government, instead of dependent on the states and private insurers.
Now the Republicans find themselves in a mess. The Affordable Care Act has brought health care to an estimated 20 million .. https://aspe.hhs.gov/pdf-report/health-insurance-coverage-and-affordable-care-act-2010-2016 .. more Americans and has expanded services — including access to drugs and preventive screening — for many more. A good number of Americans, including Republicans and the president himself, say they like elements of the law. It’s not a coincidence that the Trump administration’s first proposed health care regulation was aimed at stabilizing the insurance markets.
Still, Republicans are using the Affordable Care Act’s so-called collapse as an argument for a much stingier law, one that would leave states responsible for paying many health care costs. Some conservatives are using the assault on the A.C.A. not to assail its novel insurance provisions — which many people like — but rather to grind an old ax against the entire Medicaid program, which was enacted in 1965 to help the poor.
As the Senate turns to its own bill, it still has time to preserve the parts of the Affordable Care Act that are working and, more importantly, strengthen those that could succeed with proper support. That would be responsible — and, indeed, is what should have happened all along.
----
Abbe R. Gluck is a professor of law and the faculty director of the Solomon Center for Health Law and Policy at Yale Law School.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/25/opinion/republicans-obamacare-aca.html?mcubz=0
See also:
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=132154426
.. also linked here .. https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=132159486
"JimLur, Maria56 - How Republicans quietly sabotaged Obamacare long before Trump came into office
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=129961788
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=130441119 "
.. remember .. on seeing any article re insurance companies pulling out of Obamacare,
Largest Hospital System in N.Y. Drops Obamacare Plans Citing Major Losses
http://www.oann.com/largest-hospital-system-in-n-y-drops-obamacare-plans-citing-major-losses/
such as that one, we must all remember to see in it the fact that most GOP politicians, with other conservatives and libertarians, have sabotaged Obamacare from it's inception .. a couple of days ago i was pmmed the above article by a conservative, hence this 2nd NYT post .. the guilty should be held to account for their sabotage of Obamacare and for their deceit in saying it is "“collapsing under its own weight”" .. fact is it isn't "“collapsing under its own weight”" .. Obamacare is limping in places because it's been shot in the foot .. it's hurting in places because money due it has been withheld .. the GOP must be held accountable for sticking to it's socially irresponsible model to "repeal and replace", rather than accomplishing a more socially responsible act path of fixing Obamacare where it needs fixing.
By ABBE R. GLUCKMAY 25, 2017
Obamacare is not “collapsing under its own weight,” as Republicans are so fond of saying. It was sabotaged from the day it was enacted. And now the Republican Party should be held accountable not only for any potential replacement of the law, but also for having tried to starve it to death.
The Congressional Budget Office on Wednesday released its accounting of the House Republicans’ replacement bill for the Affordable Care Act, and the numbers are not pretty: It is projected to leave 23 million more Americans uninsured over 10 years, through deep cuts to insurance subsidies and Medicaid. The report underscores how the bill would cut taxes for the rich to take health care away from the less well-off.
The A.C.A. is not perfect, and improvements to it would be welcome. But it worked in many respects and would have worked much better had Congress been a faithful guardian of the law.
It is worth making a record of those Republican saboteurs’ efforts. The A.C.A.’s opponents brought a lawsuit against its requirement that people buy insurance — a Republican idea — the very day the statute was signed into law. The Supreme Court rejected that claim. But the court gave opponents a major victory on another front, ruling that Obamacare’s expansion of Medicaid was optional for states. Yet another lawsuit seized on some sloppy language in the law to make the implausible argument that Congress did not provide for the insurance subsidies on which the law depends. The Supreme Court also rejected that challenge.
But if the Republicans lost those cases, they succeeded in sowing the insurance markets with doubt and forcing states to slow down implementation while awaiting the court’s decisions. That in turn may have reduced sign-ups, further destabilizing the insurance market. The second case challenging the subsidies was not decided until 2015, more than a year after the statute’s critical 2014 deadline for implementation.
Related Coverage [1 of 7]
The Best Replacement for Obamacare Is Medicaid MAY 18, 2017
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/18/opinion/obamacare-repeal-medicaid.html
Even worse, these lawsuits helped make the A.C.A. the salient partisan issue of the Obama administration, turning the law into the ultimate Republican litmus test: Implementing a state insurance exchange or expanding Medicaid, even when it seemed in a state’s interest, became treasonous for the party. Nevertheless, about a dozen principled Republican governors bucked their party and expanded their programs.
Health insurance executives summoned by House Republicans to a hearing on the Affordable Care Act in 2014. Credit Stephen Crowley/The New York Times
In 2014, the House brought a lawsuit, arguing that a critical piece of A.C.A. funding — the cost-sharing subsidies that pay insurers to lower premiums — had not been properly appropriated. For insurers, not knowing whether that money could be cut off — President Trump is still threatening not to pay them — has caused anxiety about whether to remain in the A.C.A. markets. More than 100 other suits have been filed, including challenges to contraception provisions and the requirement that employers provide insurance.
On the political front, the Republicans targeted provisions of the law that provided crucial transitional financing to steady the insurance markets early in the program. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, calling the money an insurance “bailout,” sponsored a measure that prevented appropriation of some of those funds. The courts have issued mixed rulings on whether the federal government must pay, adding yet more instability to the insurance markets.
The Affordable Care Act, like any major statute, surely could use adjustments. For example, the insurance subsidies were probably set too low initially. The Obama administration’s decision to allow more people to stay on their old plans than originally expected may also have narrowed the new pool of insurance customers in ways that contributed to premium hikes. The Republican-controlled House never provided any additional implementation money after the initial appropriation set forth in the Affordable Care Act itself, forcing the Department of Health and Human Services to scrounge for needed funds.
A caretaking Congress would have fixed what wasn’t working. Instead, opponents did everything possible to shut off all the A.C.A.’s financing — starvation intended to wreak havoc in the insurance markets and to make it falsely appear that the A.C.A.was collapsing because it was just bad policy.
The irony is that the A.C.A. was vulnerable to this strategy because the Democrats had tried to compromise with the Republicans in an ultimately unsuccessful effort to build bipartisan support for the law. If the Democrats had instead enacted a single-payer policy — such as Medicare for all — the entire health care system would have been in the hands of the federal government, instead of dependent on the states and private insurers.
Now the Republicans find themselves in a mess. The Affordable Care Act has brought health care to an estimated 20 million .. https://aspe.hhs.gov/pdf-report/health-insurance-coverage-and-affordable-care-act-2010-2016 .. more Americans and has expanded services — including access to drugs and preventive screening — for many more. A good number of Americans, including Republicans and the president himself, say they like elements of the law. It’s not a coincidence that the Trump administration’s first proposed health care regulation was aimed at stabilizing the insurance markets.
Still, Republicans are using the Affordable Care Act’s so-called collapse as an argument for a much stingier law, one that would leave states responsible for paying many health care costs. Some conservatives are using the assault on the A.C.A. not to assail its novel insurance provisions — which many people like — but rather to grind an old ax against the entire Medicaid program, which was enacted in 1965 to help the poor.
As the Senate turns to its own bill, it still has time to preserve the parts of the Affordable Care Act that are working and, more importantly, strengthen those that could succeed with proper support. That would be responsible — and, indeed, is what should have happened all along.
----
Abbe R. Gluck is a professor of law and the faculty director of the Solomon Center for Health Law and Policy at Yale Law School.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/25/opinion/republicans-obamacare-aca.html?mcubz=0
See also:
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=132154426
.. also linked here .. https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=132159486
It was Plato who said, “He, O men, is the wisest, who like Socrates, knows that his wisdom is in truth worth nothing”
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