Conservatives Meet With Trump, Give Thumbs Up to Healthcare Bill

Posted on Saturday, March 18, 2017 by Post Scripts

Posted by Tina

Over a dozen Republican Study Committee members agreed to endorse the GOP healthcare bill after meeting with the President Friday when he agreed to changes they favored. Freedom Caucus members remain skeptical. They aren’t convinced the bill, and the proposed three part plan, will meet the agreement Republicans made to their constituents to repeal and replace Obamacare. RollCall reports on the progress and the changes that were agreed upon:

The votes Trump and Speaker Paul D. Ryan, R-Wis., secured on Friday move them one step closer to locking in the 216 GOP votes they will need on the floor to send the measure to the Senate. (Because of five House vacancies, the threshold for majority support is lower than the usual 218.)

The changes Trump signed onto would give states more flexibility by allowing them the option to take Medicaid funding as a block grant or a per-capita payment, said a White House official. It would also impose a work requirement for able-bodied adults that do not have children who are enrolled in the Medicaid program, the official said.

House Majority Whip Steve Scalise said the language would allow states to decide whether to impose the work requirement but provide incentives for them to do so.

Paul Ryan said he and the President are still open to changes that will make it “best for the American people.” A vote is scheduled for next Thursday.

As reported in the Daily Caller the second and third parts to the plan are necessary due to Senate rules:

The second leg would involve the administration repealing Obamacare regulations via executive order, while the third aims to pass additional replacement language that can’t be added to the initial bill due to Senate rules. Proponents of “A Better Way Agenda,” would attempt to accomplish goals like allowing people to purchase insurance across state lines in legislation later in the year.

Something needs to be done. Obamacare doesn’t work for many Americans who can’t afford to pay the high premiums and deductibles. It’s imploding in states across America where insurers are losing too much money and have left the exchanges. Unfortunately things will not improve immediately even if this plan makes it to the presidents desk. A period of adjustment will require patience. Hopefully an improved economy will run parallel with changes to healthcare laws and regulations that will help the transition.

Trump inherited a big healthcare mess. Will the left give him elbow room (eight years) to fix it as they did with Obama and the economy?

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10 Responses to Conservatives Meet With Trump, Give Thumbs Up to Healthcare Bill

  1. Dewster says:
    Saturday, March 18, 2017 at 12:45 pm

    Trump did not inherit a big Healtcare mess. Tea Party Politcians railed it for 8 years and promised a repeal. So they are scrambling to do something.

    I remember hey said they had a Plan. Turns out they had no plan it was all campaign bull.

    The new Bill is a disaster and is turning the base. Could loose hem 2020. That said I will look at he changes but I suspect it is still no more than a huge tax cut for donors and a disaster for the health of citizens.

    You realize the original Trump plan made it so Seniors were left to die right? Tax credits were low and assumed you had thousands to pay for it

    You repeat the propaganda but say very little on actual policy.

    Personally I can not wait til Trump stiffs everybody.

    Now remember what he promised…cause he does not understand a thing about it…..

    Let us dig into policy

    CAN YOU EVEN EXPLAIN THE aca?

    Reply
    • Tina says:
      Saturday, March 18, 2017 at 4:03 pm

      I can explain the ACA in just a few words: A giant government takover that doesn’t work for patients, doctors, or health insurers and that way too many Americans can;t afford to use.

      EPIC FAIL!!!

      2013, CNS News, “11,588,500 Words: Obamacare Regs 30x as Long as Law”

      Bureaucracies in the Obama Administration have thus far published approximately 11,588,500 words of final Obamacare regulations, while there are only 381,517 words in the Obamacare law itself.

      That means unelected federal officials have now written 30 words of regulations for each word in the law.

      2013, CNS News, “Blue Cross, Aetna, United, Humana Flee Obamacare Exchanges”

      2016, Very Well: “…at least 18 health insurance carriers around the country have said that they will not continue to offer plans in the exchange in 2017.”

      2015, Daily Kos, “More And More Americans Can’t Afford “High Deductible” Health Insurance Plans”

      2015, Forbes, “These Are Obamacare’s High Deductibles, Not The Market’s”

      Yesterday’s New York Times (“Many Say High Deductibles Make Their Health Law Insurance All but Useless”) and today’s Boston Globe (“High-Deductible Health Plans Make Affordable Care Act ‘Unaffordable,’ Critics Say”) tell the stories of ObamaCare enrollees who found, as one of them put it, “We can’t afford the Affordable Care Act.” The problem appears to be the high deductibles found in many policies on ObamaCare’s health-insurance Exchanges. The Globe cites the example of a warehouse packer and airport shuttle driver, who “pay $275 a month for a ‘bronze’ plan with a $13,200 deductible.”

      Is this really Obamacare’s fault? Yes.

      Haven’t Obamacare opponents advocated exactly these types of plans for decades? No.

      For decades, government has encouraged more comprehensive health insurance than Americans would demand if they were spending their own money. This has led to a lot of wasteful spending on low-value health insurance and low-value medical care.

      Free-market advocates have proposed getting government out of Americans’ health insurance decisions. Ending government encouragement of comprehensive coverage would cause people to gravitate toward less-comprehensive coverage–either coverage with more cost-sharing, such as high deductibles, or health plans where the insurer helps consumers to avoid low-value medical care, also known as managed care. One of the main benefits of high-deductible health insurance in a market system is that consumers who choose high deductibles save money on their premiums and therefore have more resources to pay their out-of-pocket expenses.

      2014, Daily Caller, “Doctors Begin To Refuse Obamacare Patients”

      Obamacare plans have shrunk payments to physicians so much that some doctors say they won’t be able to afford to accept Obamacare coverage, NPR reports.

      Many of the eight million sign-ups in Obamacare exchanges nationwide already face more limited choices for physicians and hospitals than those in the private insurance market. But with low physician reimbursement rates, the problem could get even worse.

      2014, Against Crony Capitalism, “AMA supported Obamacare even though doctors didn’t, Now doctors get stuck with a big bill”

      The White House got the American Medical Association to sign off on the ACA even though only 13% of its members supported Obamacare. Now it looks like doctors may be on the hook for uncovered medical care if a patient cancels medical coverage but sees the doctor within the 90 day grace period following cancellation.

      2017, CNN, “What doctors think about the Affordable Care Act”

      “I love medicine. Medicine is great,” Hill says with a big smile. “When you sit in the exam room, interact with patients, you operate, you do those things that we were trained to do. It’s awesome.”
      The smile disappears. “When we have to deal with the industry of health care, when I have to deal with all of the bureaucracy and the burden that’s built around the system of health care, that makes medicine difficult.”
      And how does Hill feel the Affordable Care Act affected that bureaucracy?
      “I thought it was going to be a disaster. And I was right.” … “The ACA took this terrible broken health care system and added a lot of burden onto physicians,” Hill says. “We’re losing the focus of who we’re supposed to be taking care of: the patient. You’re not my customer anymore. Now, I’ve got to respond to the federal bureaucracy, not you.”

      You accuse me of “propaganda” and then make this specious claim: “You realize the original Trump plan made it so Seniors were left to die right? Tax credits were low and assumed you had thousands to pay for it”

      What an absolute dolt!!!

      Ideas are not law.

      Obamacare provides subsidies for people making 400% OVER the poverty level. How does that make sense?

      Obamacare has deductibles and premiums that are so high people can’t afford to get care…and you find that acceptable?

      Under Obamacare insurance companies participating in the exchanges are losing so much money they can’t afford to continue to operate in some states. And you think that the law is “working?”

      2015, National Review, “ObamaCare’s predictable collapse”

      ObamaCare co-ops were supposed to provide lower cost health insurance alternatives because they weren’t driven by the profit motive. Now, just a couple of years after the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was implemented, 12 out of 23 co-ops have failed, costing taxpayers $1.2 billion in defaulted loan repayments. The failure rate even outstrips the Labor Department’s 2011 projections of 36 percent, and as The Carpenters used to sing, “We’ve Only Just Begun.”

      The impact on 100,000 New York state users of the failed Health Republic Insurance of New York co-op means they will have to find new health insurance. The New York Post writes, “Add 250 New York cancer patients to the long list of victims of ObamaCare’s lies — just one more snapshot of the program’s ongoing death spiral.”

      The reason cancer patients are now scrambling for healthcare? The collapsed co-op was the only insurance provider that covered treatment at the world-renowned Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, and now with the co-op gone, cancer patients need to find new insurance, new doctors, new treatment centers all at the most vulnerable time in their lives. The naive idea that the co-op could offer premium coverage at non-premium pricing and survive has left patients stranded and taxpayers stuck with the price tag.

      But failing co-ops are only a small part of the problem for the ObamaCare house of cards. The largest health insurer in the country, UnitedHealthcare, just announced that they are unlikely to participate in the ObamaCare health exchanges in 2017 and are limiting their marketing for customers through exchanges in 2016.

      The Wall Street Journal quotes UnitedHealth Group Chief Executive Stephen J. Hemsley as saying, “We can’t sustain these losses,” further explaining, “We can’t subsidize a market that doesn’t appear at this point to be sustaining itself.”

      It has long been rumored that health insurance providers were teetering on financial disaster due to the combination of fewer enrollees than planned, increased coverage requirements and profit restrictions imposed under the law. UnitedHealthcare’s admission during a briefing with stock analysts that continuing to operate under the strictures of the ACA doesn’t make financial sense is the equivalent of driving a dozen nails into the coffin of much-hated law.

      But wait, there’s more. That ol’ promise that healthcare costs would go down by $2,500 for an average family took another hit of reality as a Wall Street Journal analysis of 2016 rates showed that premiums for individual health plans are going up, with double-digit increases more typical than not.

      And healthcare services are being limited due as part of the ObamaCare fallout.

      It’s very simple Dewey. the law must be changed because the ACA just doesn’t work!

      Reply
  2. Libby says:
    Saturday, March 18, 2017 at 2:40 pm

    Oh, I do LOVE IT. Your “Freedom Partiers” won’t vote for it because it provides to a very few (and most of them undeserving), government subsidized access to healthcare. And the moderates will not vote for it … for the same reason.

    Oh, fun, fun, fun.

    Reply
  3. Tina says:
    Saturday, March 18, 2017 at 4:39 pm

    ZERO Republicans voted for the ACA. Democrats had to twist a lot of arms to get the ACA passed including at the last minute making bribes to get it passed in the dead of night.

    Fun fun fun? Pretty stupid. See above comment to Dewey.

    Let’s go back in time, shall we. The right’s take as ACA was passed is reflected in an article by Dick Morris, “OBAMA BRIBES, THREATENS, AND REWARDS CONGRESS TO PASS HEALTH CARE:

    All aspects of President Obama’s Chicago-style tactics are on display as he cajoles, bullies, and bribes the House to pass his health care proposals despite the overwhelming public rejection with which they have been met.

    To some, he offers bribes. Congressman Jim Matheson, endangered species – a Utah Democrat – succeeded in getting his brother Scott appointed to a federal judgeship. Matheson voted against Obamacare when it first passed the House. With his new-found winnings in his pocket, he now professes to be undecided. He faces a clear conflict between his district and his conscience on the one hand and the bribe to his brother on the other. The conscience will probably lose.

    Matheson supports his party 91% of the time according to the Washington Post even though McCain got 58% of the vote in his district in 2008. But Matheson got re-elected – by professing independence from the Democratic Party’s liberal line – with 63% of the vote, so he probably figures he can sneak in a vote for health care and still con his district into re-electing him. After all, he’s not heavy. He’s my brother.

    Even as Matheson basks in the glow of presidential bribery, Eric Massa, a renegade Democrat from the Southern Tier of New York State faces his wrath. Massa’s sin was to vote against Obamacare. So Pelosi and the ethically-challenged House Ethics Committee are investigating him for “verbally abusing” a male member of his staff. In this age of more serious offenses, using “salty language” to express his displeasure with staff work would not seem to rank high on the list of indictable offenses. If it were, Lyndon Johnson would have been impeached. But Massa is being hung out to dry as an example to other would-be independent minded Democrats. The attacks on him have gotten so bad that Massa has announced his retirement after only one term in office.

    But there is a reward waiting for House members who ignore the wishes and interests of their constituents and vote for Obama’s health care proposals. Alan Mollohan has had a pesky FBI investigation hanging over his head for a few years. Now, presto, right before the health care vote, it went away. The Justice Department, headed by Attorney General Eric Holder, announced that the FBI was closing the inquiry.

    Mollohan’s sin? He pushed for earmarks for nonprofit enterprises in his district and then went into a real estate deal in Florida with the head of the company under financial terms that were distinctly favorable to the Congressman. But Mollohan toes the party line and is now getting his unjust reward.

    With health care reform coming up for a vote in the next few days, such tactics send a message to the House where Pelosi is having trouble lining up her votes: That Obama will do anything – anything at all – to pass this bill.

    For those of us without judgeships or the FBI at our disposal, we can only call and write the swing Congressmen (go to DickMorris.com for a list and their phone numbers) or donate to the League of American Voters to step up its fierce media offensive in their districts to urge them to vote no.

    Blog Critics:

    “Look at how this bill was written… can you say it was done openly — with transparency and accountability, without backroom deals and struck behind closed doors, hidden from the people? Hell, no you can’t!” — House Minority Leader John Boehner on the House floor, March 21, 2010

    More appalling than the health care bill itself, was the process which President Obama, Harry Reid, and Nancy Pelosi employed to guarantee a conquest –– one of the biggest entitlement programs and power grabs in our history.

    The drama over ObamaCare began with dismissing and devaluing American citizens and their concerns. Criticism was combated with “citizen bashing,” which included terms like racists, stupid, and many other disparaging labels. In the midst of the health care reform hoopla were the ongoing backroom deals that were cut to buy Democratic votes with taxpayer money. Later stages opened up controversy over political procedural issues like reconciliation and the “deem and pass” rule. While Nancy Pelosi didn’t use the “Slaughter Solution” to pass ObamaCare, we learned that she and other Democrats do not have much respect for “the rules” and many are dead set on trampling on our liberties and “slaughtering” our Constitution.

    Late Sunday, the ObamaCare push ended the way I had predicted, relying on Bart Stupak, who went from pro-life “hero” to pro-life phony. The once pack of twelve pro-life Democrats that dwindled to five by vote time, were “handled” during the final countdown with a promise of an executive order from the president, which in reality is worthless. And that’s not just coming from the right, but directly from the lips of Democrat Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who told Fox News, “[this] executive order can’t change the law.” Thanks to the Stupak “sellouts,” ObamaCare passed the House with a 219 to 212 vote (with no Republican support and 34 Democratic “no” votes) and this morning President Obama signed the health care bill, which is now the law of the land.

    I think what you’re really afraid of is that whatever the Republicans put together and finally pass, it will be 100 times better than the very destructive Obamacare. In addition to the horrendous and troubling problems faced by doctors and patients the ACA has been a drag on the economy, effecting jobs:

    2014, Real Clear Politics, “CBO director: Falling work force participation — including Obamacare — will be ‘central factor’ in slowing economic growth”

    When Congressional Budget Office Director Douglas Elmendorf appeared before the House Budget Committee on Wednesday, there were plenty of lawmakers, Republican and Democrat, who wanted to make points about Obamacare. Republicans stressed the CBO’s finding that Obamacare will create such a sharp disincentive to work that Americans will stop working to the tune of 2.5 million full-time jobs. Democrats tried to cast doubt on the number or, alternately, to suggest that Americans leaving the work force because they no longer need a job to secure health coverage would be a good thing.

    The points had been pretty much exhausted by the time Republican Rep. Diane Black got her turn to address Elmendorf. Her question was straightforward: “What effect [will] the reduced labor force participation have on the economy?”

    Elmendorf’s answer was simple, short, and devastating. “It is the central factor in slowing economic growth,” he said. “After we get out of this current downturn, but later in this decade and beyond, the principal reason why we think the economic growth will be less than it was for most of my lifetime will be a slower rate of growth by the labor force.”

    Put aside all the talking points about Americans being “liberated” to pursue their interests without having to worry about employer-provided health coverage. Everyone knows growth is the key to economic health for the U.S., and Elmendorf said declining labor force participation will be the “central factor” in delaying economic growth. That’s a bad thing.

    Own it and move on.

    Hopefully the give and take going on in Congress (we still have the Senate wrangling ahead of us) will result in a bill that works much better for the majority of Americans and the truly needy will still find help through an improved Medicare program.

    Reply
  4. Libby says:
    Saturday, March 18, 2017 at 7:36 pm

    Again … are you going to spend the entire next four reflecting on the last eight? We are here; it is now; and the ACA works … after a fashion. Single payer would work better, but we will take what we can pay for just now.

    Reply
    • Tina says:
      Saturday, March 18, 2017 at 9:06 pm

      We are here…it is now…and we are dealing with healthcare only because of the massive failure of your team. But YOU won’t own it. As long as that’s true I will continue to hang it around your neck.

      Single payer would be as horrible as Obamacare…or worse. Single payer would create a government controlled monopoly. Monopolies are never a good idea. In America single payer is a very bad idea because it goes against what we believe in, freedom and choice, two things that bring lower prices through competition.

      Reply
  5. Peggy says:
    Sunday, March 19, 2017 at 3:45 pm

    For the new health care plan to succeed Americans need to do a mind shift from the gov’t owes us health care for “free” to them being responsible for their own coverage.

    The days of eating out all of the time, buying the latest electronic gadget and spending hundreds of dollars on footwear for a 10 year old and Couch purses will have to take a back seat to making sure the insurance premiums are paid just like the rent/mortgage and PGE bills.

    It’s time for generations born since the Baby Boomers learn to live within a budget, without thinking the gov’t will pick up the tab and using the credit cards to the max is so much fun they end up with more and more to pay off the others. Insane!

    They’ve learned since our gov’t just keeps borrowing and buying stuff it can’t afford, so can they. Bankruptcy is rarely talked about today, unless you’re a small business owner. Student loans can now be forgiven, why not all of their debts? This is the mindset our gov’t the past eight years has done an excellent job of teaching the younger generations to live by.

    I’ve broken down republicans into three groups; Conservatives, Moderates and RINOs.

    The only ones who like this bill so far are the moderates. The other two still need convincing. That’s not going to be an easy task to accomplish.

    I agree with Paul Ryan’s argument for the need of the three step plan because of the Senate rules. But, apparently the Conservatives believe there are additional items that can be included in step one that don’t need to wait until step three.

    I must say it is nice to have the regular rule process back and not having Obama going it alone with his EOs and Dirty Harry stuffing Pocket Vetoes in his desk. The process is ugly, just like making sausage. I love sausage!

    Reply
  6. Peggy says:
    Sunday, March 19, 2017 at 4:30 pm

    Ted Cruz “Face The Nation'” Interview (03/19/17)

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAtw19yypmM

    Reply

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