Posted by Tina
As you likely know the plan to repeal and replace the ACA failed to get the required votes to pass in the House. The matter is, for now, dead and Obamacare will live on with implosion on the horizon.
Last October President Obama took steps to save Obamacare, steps that were not stricktly legal according to Michael P. Ramirez at The Weekly Standard:
Obamacare’s days are really and truly numbered. Problems with the law are reaching critical mass. So the Obama administration has gone to extraordinary lengths to prop up the system—and by “extraordinary,” we mean illegal.
An inspector general report recently concluded that the Obama administration did not have the authority to give insurers billions in tax dollars to keep them docilely participating in the flawed insurance exchanges created by the law.
So the administration came up with a dubious and desperate tactic to pay off insurers—they would take an obscure Treasury fund designed to pay off lawsuits against the government, encourage insurers to sue for losses incurred as the result of their poorly designed law, and then quickly agree to a massive settlement. In the wake of the inspector general report and public grumbling, the administration seems to be backing off of that plan. No surprise, then, that a number of major insurers, with mounting losses in the hundreds of millions of dollars, pulled out of Obamacare over the summer.
How bad are things? Bad enough that liberals, who have previously done backflips pretending that Obama’s key policy “achievement” is something other than a giant failure, are now openly critical of Obamacare. A recent article on page one of the New York Times matter-of-factly reported that “Mr. Obama’s signature domestic achievement will almost certainly have to change to survive. . . . [H]ealth plans in the individual insurance market are still too expensive and inaccessible.”
While this raised some eyebrows, it was nothing compared with what former President Bill Clinton just said. Out campaigning for his wife, he had this to say about Obamacare: “So you’ve got this crazy system where all of a sudden 25 million more people have health care and then the people who are out there busting it, sometimes 60 hours a week, wind up with their premiums doubled and their coverage cut in half. It’s the craziest thing in the world.” The next day he tried to walk back his remarks a bit, but even then he still said the law is hurting “small-business owners and employees.” The day after that, Chelsea Clinton said at a campaign stop, “we do need to work on the ‘affordable’ part of the Affordable Care Act.”
The House will now move on to tax reform and if we’re lucky a bill will reach the President’s desk. Lower tax rates would help businesses and the economy and that will help consumers and job seekers.
Is the Congress so dysfunctional as to screw tax reform too? Time will tell.
For years I’ve listened and watched as our Republican congressmen and congresswomen said that they could do so much better than the affordable care act. And it seems, after all this time and the dozens of votes taken to repeal the affordable care act, that our newly elected Republicans, that have control over Congress and the executive branch, do not have the gonads to repeal the affordable care act or a plan to replace it. This makes me very sad, for I was looking forward to canceling my $1,300 per month health insurance policy for something less expensive. They promised to do it. They promised to do it first thing. They promised they had a great plan. Why can’t I have the same health insurance that I’ve given them? Well, here’s something that I promise our current congressmen and women; I promise to remember your promises next election.
Well said Pete. I hope we have some decent alternative contenders in the mix.
The failure to repeal/replace Obumblecare lies directly at the feet of RINO Paul Ryan. President Trump trusted him – a mistake – to come up a healthcare fix. Ryan and his insurance company buddies came up with a bill behind closed doors that was a “take it or leave it” scenario, and attempted to ram it through – similar to the Demwit debacle in 2008.
But the Freedom Caucus – and others – balked, and the votes to pass were not there.
Questions for Ryan – what was the all-fired hurry, why the secrecy creating the bill and why were conservatives denied a place at the bill-crafting table?
And now there’s an attempt to come up with critically needed tax reform, which must originate in the House. Gonna be even harder for that since there were many sources of funding that were addressed in the withdrawn Obumblecare fix(?). Ryan’s speakership was severely damaged with his healthcare fiasco. If he fails with tax reform, he’s toast as Speaker.
Tina;
2014 Little Marco’s bill passed to undermine the subsidies to drive up the premiums.
Funny you never mention the real strategy to destroy the ACA.
Trump has no clue on what the ACA or his bill says nor does he understand Healthcare.
let us keep this clear.