Morality is not determined by the church you attend nor the faith you embrace. It is determined by the quality of your character and the positive impact you have on those you meet along your journey
Republicans are retreating from calls to repeal ObamaCare ahead of this year’s midterm elections.
Less than a year after the GOP gave up on its legislative effort to repeal the law, Democrats are going on offense on this issue, attacking Republicans for their votes as they hope to retake the House majority.
ObamaCare’s favorability in polls has improved since the repeal push last year, with more now favoring the law than not. A Kaiser Family Foundation poll in March found that 50 percent of the public favors the law, while 43 percent holds an unfavorable view.
GOP strategist Ford O’Connell said the political winds have shifted on the issue, turning ObamaCare into a subject Democrats want to tout and many Republicans want to duck.
“I don’t think it’s seen as a winning issue,” he said. “It’s also an issue that tends to fire up the Democratic base more so than the Republican base.”
I KNEW this was going to happen eventually.
Now the Democrats can run on improving Obamacare so that it better serves their constituents, while the Republicans have to pretend that they never even heard of the Affordable Care Act.
Sadly for the GOP their past votes are just the kind of ammunition that can be used to blow their campaigns out of the water.
I think this, plus the changing debate on guns, added to the GOP's ties to Donald Trump, signal HUGE victories for the Democrats moving forward.
The 2010 health care law has slowly but surely moved out of the line of fire. President Trump barely mentioned it in his State of the Union address Tuesday night. At their annual retreat this week in West Virginia, top Republicans signaled that the repeal dream is likely over.
After Doug Jones won the Alabama special Senate election in December, the bare Republican Senate majority has no viable path left for a more substantial repeal plan; the math in a 51-seat majority is too daunting. Sens. Susan Collins (R-ME) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) remain opposed to taking up repeal. Senate leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has already said that Republicans would probably move on from health care.
So the party’s long-held promise to repeal Obamacare root and branch appears to be actually, finally dead. Of course, that hasn’t stopped Trump claiming, after his party’s tax overhaul passed in December with a repeal of the law’s individual mandate, that Republicans “have essentially repealed Obamacare.” But he’s wrong about that.
Repealing the individual mandate is a legitimate blow to the Obamacare marketplaces, but doing so won’t unravel the markets entirely. They will function worse than they did before, and premiums will likely rise.
But millions of people who receive generous tax subsidies to buy coverage will not feel the brunt of those cost increases. The law’s rules prohibiting health insurers from discriminating against preexisting conditions remain on the books. Finally, and most importantly, Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion, which covered upward of 15 million people, remains untouched.
Well there's an island of good news in this sea of insanity at least.
Still, as pointed out in the article, the Affordable Care Act has been badly damaged, and it needs to be repaired and fine tuned.
Neither of those things will happen with a Republican majority in the House and Senate, so we desperately need to turn out the vote in 2018, and then again in 2020.
And whatever we do we cannot allow ourselves to be distracted with bullshit purity tests and Democratic infighting.
We are often our own worst enemies, but right now there are far more dangerous adversaries with which to deal.
Over the course of President Donald Trump’s first year in office, the number of Americans without health insurance increased 1.3 percent—with 3.2 million more people uninsured, according to Gallup-Sharecare’s latest tracking report published Tuesday.
It’s the largest one-year increase in the uninsured population since Gallup-Sharecare began the survey in 2008.
The study noted “several factors” swelling the ranks of the uninsured, from increased premiums caused by insurance companies dropping out of the individual market to uncertainty around whether the Trump administration would enforce the individual mandate’s penalty for forgoing health insurance. Exacerbating both factors, the GOP-controlled Congress repealed the individual mandate in December, which is expected to hike premiums by an additional 10 percent or more.
Premiums also went up significantly in 2017 when the Trump administration cut off cost-sharing reduction payments to insurance companies, though the vast majority of people on the individual market were shielded from the increase by a bump in their federal tax credits.
Though the uninsured rate remains well below the high of 18 percent—the year before the Affordable Care Act went into effect—the increase in 2017 is the first reversal of several years of decline. And Gallup-Sharecare predict that the trend will continue, with more people dropping or losing their insurance coverage in the years to come.
Gee, who would have thought that constantly attacking Obamacare without having a better plan to take its place would have such a negative effect?
Oh that's right, the almost 66 million people who voted for his opponent.
Pres. Trump on repeal of individual mandate in tax bill: "When the individual mandate is being repealed, that means Obamacare is being repealed...Obamacare has been repealed in this bill." https://t.co/8qXJjj5j9Vpic.twitter.com/ThnXHuECJS
Almost none of this is true. Indeed, it reveals the opposite. Trump recognizes that he has no chance to repeal Obamacare, so he is instead pretending to have killed the law that his base loathes (but which the country as a whole likes quite a bit).
Most of Obamacare remains in place. That includes such things as reforms that have helped hold down medical inflation, the expansion of Medicaid to cover the poor, subsidies for individuals to buy insurance, and regulations to prevent insurers from cherry-picking the healthy and excluding the sick. “When the individual mandate is being repealed, that means Obamacare is being repealed. Because they get their money from the individual mandate,” Trump “explains.”
It is possible he thinks this is true. It isn’t. The law is primarily financed by other taxes.
It is correct that repealing the individual mandate will impair the effectiveness of the marketplaces that sell insurance to people who can’t get coverage through their employer. That will make premiums more expensive, and possibly drive insurers out of some markets. States that want to have a highly functioning marketplace will be able to impose a state-level mandate, though, an outcome that could make insurance cheaper in blue states than red ones.
My favorite part of this is how smugly self satisfied Trump looks as he spews his bullshit.
However believe it or not this is not the most awkward statement made by Republicans after they passed the GOP tax bill.
Beating him out by a mile was Orrin Hatch's oral gratification of Donald Trump right out in public.
But still that has NOTHING on Mike Pence who essentially prayed at the altar of Donald Trump.
Good Lord, you need to watch this. After Ben Carson's Prayer, Mike Pence actually delivered a prayer of thanks to Trump. Must watch. pic.twitter.com/sAq9OQnQT9
The Senate passed the most sweeping tax rewrite in decades early Saturday, with Republicans lining up to approve an overhaul that will touch almost every corner of the United States economy, affecting families, small business owners and multinational corporations, with the biggest benefits flowing to the highest-earning Americans.
Senators voted 51-49, as Republicans approved the nearly 500-page bill in the early morning hours after lawmakers received a rewritten version, which contained significant changes from the original bill that passed two Senate panels last month along party lines. The last-minute revisions prompted an outcry from Democrats, who said it was impossible — and irresponsible — for lawmakers to read and digest a significant piece of legislation in such a short period of time.
Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader and Kentucky Republican, called it “a great day for the country.”
The president praised Republican lawmakers on Saturday morning on Twitter, saying, “Biggest Tax Bill and Tax Cuts in history just passed in the Senate. Now these great Republicans will be going for final passage. Thank you to House and Senate Republicans for your hard work and commitment!”
House Speaker Paul D. Ryan, Republican of Wisconsin, said in a statement that with Senate approval “we will move quickly to a conference committee so we can get a final bill to President Trump’s desk.”
But, speaking on the Senate floor ahead of the vote, Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the minority leader, called the Republican approach “a process and a product that no one can be proud of and everyone should be ashamed of.”
As explained by Senator Jon Tester last night, this bill was handed to the Democrats with only a handful of hours before the vote, and with revisions being added almost up until the last minute.
I was just handed a 479-page tax bill a few hours before the vote. One page literally has hand scribbled policy changes on it that can’t be read. This is Washington, D.C. at its worst. Montanans deserve so much better. pic.twitter.com/q6lTpXoXS0
Many of those revisions contained sweetheart deals for Senators who were previous hold outs like Susan Collins:
Several amendments that Collins offered were incorporated into the bill, including the restoration of a $10,000 deduction for property taxes and a lower threshold for deducting medical expenses.
Collins touted the ability for her to get changes into the bill as crucial to her decision to ultimately be able to support it.
Senate Republicans passed legislation early Saturday allowing oil and gas drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge as part of a tax reform package, moving closer to fulfilling a long-time GOP goal.
The passage of the bill marked a significant achievement for Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, the chairwoman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, who has introduced legislation to open a portion of the Alaskan refuge to drilling every term she has served in the chamber, only to be blocked by Democrats.
“This small package offers a tremendous opportunity for Alaska, for the Gulf Coast, and for all of our nation,” Murkowski said before the vote. “We have authorized responsible energy development in the 1002 area.”
A major conservation group is blasting the newly passed Senate GOP tax bill for allowing oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), calling the bill “simply shameful.”
“Opening the Arctic to drilling as part of this tax plan is simply shameful. The Arctic Refuge isn’t a bank—drilling there won’t pay for the tax cuts the Senate just passed,” National Audubon Society President and CEO David Yarnold said in a statement Saturday.
Actually it is not likely to bring in much money at all as the cost of new drilling is quite high in Alaska and with the price of oil plunging the risk to cost ratio may mean that few, if any, new wells are dug.
In the meantime the bill did repeal the Obamacare mandate which means that the healthcare of millions of Americans will likely be affected by the vote.
The editorial board of the New York Times called it an "Historic Tax Heist":
The bill is expected to add more than $1.4 trillion to the federal deficit over the next decade, a debt that will be paid by the poor and middle class in future tax increases and spending cuts to Medicare, Social Security and other government programs. Its modest tax cuts for the middle class disappear after eight years. And up to 13 million people stand to lose their health insurance because the bill makes a big change to the Affordable Care Act.
Yet Republicans somehow found a way to give a giant and permanent tax cut to corporations like Apple, General Electric and Goldman Sachs, saving those businesses tens of billions of dollars.
All in all it is a truly terrible bill, which is why the Republicans demanded that it be passed late last night, because they well knew that if the American people had the opportunity to really know what was in it that they would take to the streets with pitchforks and torches.
The White House is trying kill Obamacare. Americans are throwing it a lifeline.
Despite the Trump Administration’s promises to “repeal and replace” the Affordable Care Act, enrollment for health insurance under the program is quite healthy with less than a month to go in the current sign-up period, according to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, a federal agency.
“In week three of Open Enrollment for 2018, 798,829 people selected plans using the HealthCare.gov platform,” the agency reported.
That brings the total number of enrollees in this period to 2.3 million, which is almost 900,000 people — or 64 percent — more than the number of customers who signed up during the first four weeks of enrollment in 2016, according to CNBC.
The figures included more than 566,000 new consumers and 1.7 million renewals, with total Healthcare.gov users exceeding 8.1 million.
And keep in mind this is without the Trump Administration doing a damn thing to help advertise this open enrollment.
It's almost as if the Obama Administration created a pretty good program that the American people want in their lives, and have come to rely on.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski says she supports GOP efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act's individual mandate, the Alaska Republican wrote in an op-ed for a local newspaper Friday.
"I have always supported the freedom to choose," Murkowski wrote in her op-ed for the Daily News-Miner, an Alaska newspaper.
"I believe that the federal government should not force anyone to buy something they do not wish to buy, in order to avoid being taxed."
Murkowski's renewed support for repealing the mandate — after repeatedly opposing her party's Obamacare repeal bills this year — may be a boon for Senate Republicans' tax legislation, which includes mandate repeal and is expected to be taken up on the Senate floor next week.
A spokesperson for Murkowski told POLITICO that the comments should not be construed as support for the tax bill, which does not yet appear to have sufficient support to pass the chamber.
“Senator Murkowski said on Friday that she will be reviewing the work of the Finance Committee over the Thanksgiving holiday and plans to look at the entire package before coming to any conclusion on the legislation," the spokesperson said.
Murkowski gained some national prominence, and the undying support of the Alaska people, when she was a "no" vote on the GOP plan to repeal and replace Obamacare.
However this time around apparently she is choosing oil over healthcare.
Murkowski was a key vote in stopping repeal of the Affordable Care Act earlier this year, but there’s one crucial difference this time around: repealing the individual mandate is tied to the Republican’s tax bill, which also includes legislation opening up the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for drilling.
Murkowski has supported opening portions of the refuge to development for years, though her efforts have been met with little success. This most recent push — which would require only a simple majority to pass — might be Murkowski’s best chance to accomplish a long-held goal.
Murkowski knows full well that doing away with this mandate would undermine the solvency of the program, and result in higher premiums and fewer people being insured.
By 2027, absent a mandate, the number of Americans without coverage would rise by 13 million, while premiums would be up an additional 10 percent, according to the most recent assessment by the Congressional Budget Office ― although the CBO is currently re-evaluating its model, and Republicans say the agency wildly overestimates the mandate’s effects.
Senator Murkowski made a promise to the people of Alaska, and whether she admits it or not, she just broke it.
And she has just now made herself vulnerable in the next election cycle.
A majority of Americans blame Donald Trump’s administration for any future problems with Obamacare, a new poll has found.
Carried out by the Kaiser Family Foundation, it found 61 per cent of respondents believe the US President and his Republican Party are responsible for any issues with the Affordable Care Act (ACA).
Only 37 per cent said Barack Obama's administration - who introduced it in 2010 - would be at fault for fewer enrollments.
......
Although Republican efforts to repeal and replace the ACA have failed, the party’s actions have been blamed for forcing prices for Obamacare plans up in 2018.
The Trump administration slashed the Obamacare budget for advertising by 90 per cent and significantly reduced spending on groups that help customers find the appropriate insurance plan.
The 2018 open enrolment period for the health insurance exchange is also only running for six weeks, which is half as long as last year.
Analysts say these measures increase the likelihood of less people signing up to the ACA.
Good, I am glad that most Americans are seeing through the Republican's bullshit.
And it is important to remind people that EVERY SINGLE problem that happens with health care in this country moving forward is directly the fault of this administration.
You can bet your ass that if Hillary Clinton had been elected that she would have been working to make Obamacare function better, not trying to destroy it from within.
RED ALERT: Senate GOP just added provision to their tax plan that would gut ACA & kick 13M ppl off insurance. Yes, it's same tax plan that would add $1 trillion+ to deficit while giving majority of benefits to corporations & the rich. We need you to make your voices heard again.
Senate Republican leaders moved Tuesday to include a repeal of the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate in their tax bill, a major change of strategy as they try to accomplish two of their top domestic priorities in a single piece of legislation.
They also announced that the individual tax cuts in the plan would be made temporary, expiring at the end of 2025 to comply with Senate rules limiting the impact of legislation on the long-term deficit. A corporate tax cut, reducing the rate from 35 to 20 percent, would be left permanent.
Repealing the mandate, which compels most Americans to buy health insurance or pay a fine, would free up more than $300 billion in government funding over the next decade that Republicans could use to finance their proposed tax cuts, but it would result in 13 million fewer people having health insurance, according to projections from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.
The CBO has also projected that repealing the individual mandate would drive up insurance premiums for many Americans by roughly 10 percent.
Simply put they are NEVER going to stop doing this until they no longer have the numbers to make the attempt.
And the only way to ensure that, is to start electing Democrats to put a stop to it for good.
And towards that end the Democrats are gathering an army.
House Democrats' campaign arm has named the first round of candidates to its "Red to Blue" program as the party looks to highlight promising Democratic challengers ahead of the 2018 midterms.
All but one of the 11 candidates highlighted by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) are running against GOP incumbents.
Only three in districts that Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton won in 2016, suggesting that they face a tougher path to victory. But Democrats are emboldened by the early signs from these campaigns, as well as the national trends tilting in the party's direction, as they look to seize the House majority in 2018.
Having good candidates is the first step, but then we have to push hard to get out the vote and take power back from these Republican thugs, and not only protect Obamacare, but also finally do the tweaking that it needs to be a more successful program to meet the needs of the American people.
The former president released a short video Wednesday encouraging people to sign up for insurance on the exchanges set up by the Affordable Care Act. In the absence of a major life event such as losing a job or getting married, people who don’t get insurance from their employer or the government only get one shot each year to sign up on these exchanges. “It only takes a few minutes,” Obama says in the video, “and the vast majority of people qualify for financial assistance. In fact, eight in 10 people this year can find plans for $75 a month or less. That’s cheaper than a lot of cell phone plans.”
In order for the markets to work correctly, a wide mix of people need to sign up for insurance. If only sick people do so, premiums will shoot up and become unaffordable. But Trump has been doing everything in his power to sabotage Obamacare and depress the number of people who sign up for coverage during open enrollment. The president cut the enrollment period in half, from 12 weeks to just six, and sharply reduced funding for groups that help people sign up for coverage.
On the same day that Obama's tweet was published, Cheeto Fuhrer tweeted this:
Wouldn't it be great to Repeal the very unfair and unpopular Individual Mandate in ObamaCare and use those savings for further Tax Cuts.....
Okay first off that does not even make any sense, and secondly...shut the fuck up.
Just hearing Barack Obama's voice again makes me feel hopeful, but then I am forced to remember that the grownup as left the building leaving only the toddler in charge.
Peter Lee, Covered California's executive director, told Business Insider in an interview that the Trump administration has thrown a wrench into insurance exchanges under the Affordable Care Act that were on their way to stabilizing themselves in 2017. Lee even agreed with Trump's assessment that Obamacare is "gone" — but perhaps for a different reason than Trump intended.
"So I think there is a truth to it — Obamacare is gone," Lee said. "The reality is what is going to come home to roost for this president and this Congress is a collapsed individual market that was working well."
Lee said research from the Kaiser Family Foundation and Standard and Poor's pointed to increased insurer profitability and strong enrollment numbers. Now, that appears to be up in the air heading into the 2018 open-enrollment period.
"If you look at all of this research, 2017 was going to be the big turnaround year and now 2018 is going to be a s---storm," Lee said. "It is going to be a nightmare for much of country with some islands of calm, relatively speaking."
California was one of Obamacare's biggest success stories.
And now thanks to Donald Trump it may end up another smoking crater.
Which I imagine means that their proposed plan to move to a single payer health care system may now be their next go to solution.
If we know anything about California, it is as that they are often the ones who create a path for the rest of the country to follow.
Providing some of the clearest evidence yet about President Donald Trump’s ability to undermine Obamacare even without the GOP votes in Congress required to officially repeal it, the national uninsurance rate is now on the rise.
According to Gallup, which has been tracking the uninsurance rate since 2008, the percentage of Americans without health care has been gradually ticking up since Trump was elected.
The uninsured rate had been on a steady downward trajectory since the Affordable Care Act was implemented, hitting historic lows over the past several years. But Gallup’s most recent report, released Friday, found the uninsured rate has risen 1.4 percentage points since the end of 2016. That works out to be almost 3.5 million more Americans going without insurance this year.
As the Associated Press reports, “the increase in the number of uninsured is more striking because it comes at a time of economic growth and low unemployment.”
Well of course the number of uninsured is on the rise, that is what happens when you sabotage Obamacare.
And now Trump owns this. Can't really blame Obama if you have actively been working to undermine the program that he created to increase access to health care.
Now can you?
I wonder if those low income Trump supporters are tired of winning yet?
Less than a week after President Donald Trump signed an executive order to halt government payments that subsidize insurance plans for low-income Americans, Senate leaders agreed "in principle" to a bill that would cover the payments for two years.
Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., the chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee announced Tuesday that he reached an agreement with Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., the committee's ranking member. The senators each made brief presentations on the deal at lunches with their respective parties.
According to one source with knowledge of the bill, the agreement contains $160 million to restore outreach and enrollment funding for the Affordable Care Act.
Trump commented on the prospect of a deal on the payments during a joint press conference with Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras Tuesday afternoon, claiming that the White House has been involved in negotiations, but called it a "short-term solution."
"It will get us over this intermediate hump," said Trump, who continued by claiming that Republicans "have" or "are very close to having" the votes to eventually pass their long-held goal of a comprehensive reform bill.
I actually think that last part is becoming less true everyday as the American people become more and more concerned at what will happen if the Republicans actually succeed in repealing Obamacare.
And speaking of Obamacare it seems a little odd to hear that the White House has been involved in this deal. Especially considering what Trump said just the other day.
President Trump: “Obamacare is finished. It's dead. It’s gone …. There is no such thing as Obamacare any more” https://t.co/CLbWiYUkSp
Stopping cost-sharing reduction (CSR) payments to insurers under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), as President Trump has repeatedly threatened, would drive up federal marketplace subsidy costs, raise premiums, cause more insurers to withdraw from the marketplaces, and increase the number of uninsured next year, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) found today. Key findings include:
Stopping CSR payments would raise federal budget deficits by $6 billion in 2018 and $194 billion over the next ten years, relative to current law, due to increased costs for the ACA’s premium tax credits for low- and moderate-income people to offset their rising premiums (see below).
Marketplace premiums for “silver-level” plans would rise by 20 percent, on average, in 2018. Premiums for such plans would be 25 percent higher in 2020 and thereafter, relative to current law.
Marketplace insurers in some states would withdraw from or not enter the marketplaces in 2018. As a result, the share of the nation’s population living in areas with no marketplace insurers would rise to 5 percent in 2018, up from less than 0.5 percent under current law.
The number of uninsured would rise by 1 million in 2018, relative to current law.
Trumpcare is about to crap all over the idiots that were moronic enough to vote for the tangerine flavored toddler.
I wonder if even THAT will finally wake them up to what they have helped to create?
President Trump on Friday announced he is "starting that process" of repealing and replacing Obamacare with his executive order to unilaterally change some aspects of health insurance coverage.
Mr. Trump, surrounded by top administration officials, business leaders and Sen. Rand Paul, R-Kentucky, praised his executive order as step towards repealing and replacing his predecessor's signature health care law.
Mr. Trump, stuck with a Republican-led Congress that hasn't passed a bill to undo Obamacare, announced earlier this week that he is resorting to his "pen" instead. Mr. Trump, who began to walk out of the Oval Office Friday before signing the order until Vice President Mike Pence reminded him to sign it, used that pen on Friday.
Mr. Trump said the order will cost the federal government "virtually nothing," and will force insurance companies to start "fighting" to sign people up for care.
"You'll get such low prices for such great care," he said.
Mr. Trump didn't back down on his desire to repeal Obamacare and fulfill a signature campaign promise, despite the GOP-led Congress' inability to agree on how to do that.
Mr. Trump said he is still committed to working with Congress to repeal and replace Obamacare, "once and for all."
The president's executive order is intended to make lower-premium plans more widely available. Mr. Trump has long talked of his desire to make plans available across state lines, something he says this order will do.
The White House views this as an action that will "increase the healthcare choices for millions of Americans, potentially allowing some employers to join together across state lines to offer coverage," according to a background call before the order's signing.
Okay as I think everybody is aware there is nothing about this that is going to increase anybody's health care choices. Those are just the bullshit talking points that Trump is using while he prepares to strip away all of the safeguards and benefits that the Affordable Care Act worked to provide.
Of course this executive order does not really accomplish anything at this point except to allow health insurance companies to sell crappy polices that will be of little use once the policy holder gets very sick or badly injured, and it is sure to be challenged by medical groups, blue states, and even some of his fellow Republicans.
Obamacare had a lofty goal, and that was not only to get more people health insurance, but also to make sure those policies covered them completely, and that they could not be kicked off when they desperately needed to be covered.
This is the first step to handing more power back to the insurance companies, and if past is prologue they will abuse that power until somebody makes them stop.
Now it is more important than ever to start talking seriously about single payer, and to take this power away from these insurance companies permanently.
By the way apparently Trump almost walked away again without signing the executive order, but he was stopped by Mike Pence.
Yeah, fuck Mike Pence.
He needs to be removed from office right along with his orange tinted Fuhrer.
President Donald Trump has already done a lot to sabotage the Affordable Care Act, whether it’s slashing the program’s advertising budget or threatening to cut off some payments that insurers need to cover their costs.
Now Trump is thinking about using his executive authority to do something that could be even more damaging to the law ― and, arguably, more threatening to people who depend on it for coverage.
Sometime in the next few days, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal, Trump is likely to instruct three key agencies to rewrite a series of regulations that affect health insurance. Some of the details were still in flux as of the weekend, sources familiar with the proposal told HuffPost. But the ultimate goal of these efforts would be to accomplish through executive action what, so far, Trump and the Republican Congress have been unable to pull off through legislation. Specifically, they would undermine the rules that guarantee comprehensive coverage to people with pre-existing conditions.
By his own admission Trump was surprised that healthcare was so hard, so how could ANYBODY possibly think that he could make it better with an executive order.
All Trump care about is undoing everything that Obama accomplished, but what he fails to understand is that once he does anything to change health care every problem that arises after that will be blamed on him, and the Republicans party.
It will be terrible for people currently on Obamacare of course, but ultimately this idiot might be handing the Democrats the tools they need to take back the House, Senate, and White House.
Andy Slavitt, who was acting CMS administrator from 2015 to 2017, accused Trump on TwAndy Slavitt, who was acting CMS administrator from 2015 to 2017,
accused Trump on Twitter of "purposely raising" health-care premiums as
part of his plan to let ObamaCare "implode."
"I ran this government agency under President Obama," Slavitt wrote.
"Make no mistake. Trump is purposely raising people's premiums."
Slavitt was reacting to news reports that Oklahoma's health commissioner
was blaming the Trump administration for missing a deadline to approve a
waiver for the state, which Oklahoma officials say will mean higher
premiums for thousands of residents.
"Three days later, beyond health plan commitment and rate filing
deadlines, Oklahoma is forced to withdraw our waiver request due to the
failure of departments to provide timely waiver approval," Oklahoma
Health Commissioner Terry Cline wrote to administration officials
earlier Friday.
"The lack of timely waiver approval will prevent thousands of Oklahomans
from realizing the benefits of significantly lower insurance premiums
in 2018," the letter added, saying approving the waiver would have
helped more than 130,000 Oklahomans and reduced premiums by 30 percent.
I just want to continue pointing out that Trump is doing this kind of shit on purpose.
Because you well know that the Republicans are going to try and push through yet ANOTHER version of their "health care" bill, this one I imagine will simply provide trucks that will drive around dispensing band aids for boo boos, and a bullet in the head for serious injuries or inoperable cancer, and when they are criticized they will say "Well he gotta do something, cause Obamacare is failing."
Yeah it's going to start failing, because they are actively starving it to death.
They are like a kid with a new gerbil who never feeds or waters it, and when it dies complains that his grandmother bought him a defective pet
The Trump administration said it cut the navigator programs because recipients had not met previous enrollment goals (PDF). But navigators say this deliberately ignores the work they do, from educating people about their health care options to convincing those they do enroll to persuade others to do the same. For them, the dialing-back of the program reeks of a White House trying to gut a law they couldn’t legislatively undo.
And they have a case. While the funding cuts to the navigator program were draconian, they were also just the latest in a months-long effort to unwind Obamacare. To date:
• The president has signed executive orders weakening the mandates requiring individuals to purchase insurance. • His administration has ended contracts with firms who have provided in-person assistance to states using healthcare.gov. • The Department of Health and Human Services has produced videos designed to undermine public support for Obamacare while using funds that were appropriate to help promote the law. • HHS has reconfigured its website to make enrollment information harder to access. • There has been little apparent effort to engage non-government partners that have worked in the past to reach uninsured populations. • And at the end of August, CMS announced that it would slash funds for marketplace outreach by 90 percent. • Even more recently, the HHS decided not to participate in pre-enrollment events with a health advocacy groups. • Additionally, HHS announced that it will shut down the federal exchange site for 12 hours for all but one Sunday during the open enrollment season.
Trump may feel that he is only damaging Obama's legacy with these actions, but "proving" that the Affordable Care Act is broken and does not function properly.
But there are real Americans lives that will be lost through these actions, and he clearly does not give a shit about any of them.
All this tangerine tinted asshole cares about is getting payback, and he does not care how many people have to suffer of die while he gets it.
The Trump administration plans to shut down the federal health insurance exchange for 12 hours during all but one Sunday in the upcoming open enrollment season.
The shutdown will occur from 12 a.m. to 12 p.m. ET on every Sunday except Dec. 10.
The Department of Health and Human Services will also shut down the federal exchange — healthcare.gov — overnight on the first day of open enrollment, Nov. 1. More than three dozen states use that exchange for their marketplaces.
HHS officials disclosed this information Friday during a webinar with community groups that help people enroll.
So if they cannot simply repeal Obamacare out right, plan B is to sabotage it from within.
Just like the Republicans to undermine government effectiveness so that they can then claim that government is completely ineffective.
