Rep. Kevin Brady: "The American Health Care Act transfers power from Washington back to the American people."pic.twitter.com/yImRD5D7tC
HHS Secretary on Obamacare Repeal: This Isn't About Trumpcare, It's About Patient Care
By Katie Pavlich
Speaking from the White House press briefing room
Tuesday, Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price rejected labels of the
new Obamacare replacement plan as "Trumpcare."
"This isn't about Trumpcare, this is about patient
care," Price said. "If you focus on the patients, I'll call it
patient care."
"Many individuals can't afford the kind of coverage
that they have right now," he continued. "This is a system that's not
working for people."
Sitting on the table beside him was the 2000 page
Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) and it's shorter replacement, 66-page long
American Health Care Act.
The ACHA is still awaiting a score from the Congressional
Budget Office.
When questioned Price couldn't say if the Trump
administration fully embraced everything currently in the new bill, indicating
the President plans to offer a number of negotiations to get to a final
agreement.
"Obamacare drove costs up for everyone," Press
Secretary Sean Spicer said. "We'll undo the massive disaster and give
power back to the patient."
Spicer said Obamacare will not be repealed with one bill,
but as part of a package that includes executive orders from the Oval Office.
"We're not jamming this through anyone's throat,
it's going to go through a Committee process," he said. "When it was
done last time, it was jammed down people's throat and look what happened...the
consequences were devastating.
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House Republicans release long-awaited ObamaCare
replacement bill
House Republicans on Monday evening released the text of their long-awaited ObamaCare replacement bill, proposing to eliminate the various taxes and penalties tied to the original legislation while still preserving certain patient protections.
Aiming to deliver on their signature campaign promise
after several election cycles trying to reclaim control of Washington, majority
Republicans unveiled what they call the American Health Care Act. The sweeping
legislation would repeal ObamaCare’s taxes along with the so-called individual
and employer mandates – which imposed fines for not buying and offering
insurance, respectively.
It also would repeal the Affordable Care Act’s subsidies,
replacing them with tax credits for consumers.
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Republicans have released their long-awaited plan to
repeal Obamacare
By Bob Bryan
Donald
Trump with House Speaker Paul Ryan. Zach Gibson/Getty Images
House Republicans on Monday evening unveiled long-awaited
legislation to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, the healthcare law
better known as Obamacare.
The basic structure of the plan appears similar to
previous Republican efforts to dismantle the law including the draft of the
bill that was leaked late last month.
The bill, called the American Health Care Act, would do
away with Obamacare's individual mandate that compels all American to buy
insurance or face a fine. Instead, it features penalties such as increased
premiums for failing to maintain continuous coverage.
The AHCA also would shift funding for people accessing
healthcare without help from an employer or the Medicare or Medicaid programs
and adjust funding for the expansion of Medicaid.
Key parts of the bill include:
Allowing people with preexisting conditions to access
coverage but penalizing lapses in coverage: Under the new law, insurers still
could not deny coverage based on a preexisting condition, but anyone who does
not have coverage for a period of 63 days or more in the previous year is
subject to a 30% increase in premiums as a penalty. The idea would be to
discourage people from waiting until they are sick to access coverage.
Introducing block tax credits for individuals to access
health insurance: Instead of the ACA's tax credits, which adjusted the amount
distributed based on income and the beneficiary's residence, the AHCA would
give lump tax credits to Americans. The credits would be based on age, and an
individual making over $75,000 or a household making over $150,000 a year would
see a decrease in the credit depending on how much he or she made over that
limit. Here's the breakdown of how much each age group would get:
- Under 30: $2,000 a year
- Age 30 to 39: $2,500 a year
- Age 40 to 49: $3,000 a year
- Age 50 to 59: $3,500 a year
- Age 60 and above: $4,000 a year
Providing grants to establish high-risk pools and
encourage enrollment: Much as with the leaked draft, the AHCA would include a
fund for states to institute numerous programs to stabilize the insurance
market, most notably "the provision of financial assistance, high-risk
individuals who do not have access to health insurance coverage offered through
an employer." This would allow states to establish high-risk pools for
people with preexisting conditions, a plan often floated by Republicans. The
plan would give states $15 billion in both 2018 and 2019 and $10 billion every
year after that through 2026.
Changing the limit that insurers can charge older
customers compared with younger customers: Under the ACA, insurers can charge
older customers (generally sicker and more expensive to cover) no more than
three times what they charge their youngest customers (generally healthier).
The Republican bill would shift that to five times the amount.
Effectively defunding Planned Parenthood: The bill
prohibits "direct spending" of federal dollars on any
"prohibited entity" including those that provide abortions for
anything other than the life of the mother, incest, or rape. This would seem to
include Planned Parenthood.
Kick lottery winners off of Medicaid: The bill spends six
pages detailing instances in which a person who receives a lump sum or large
payments from winning the lottery would be kicked off of Medicaid.
President Donald Trump was quick to dive in with a tweet
from the @POTUS account.
"House just introduced the bill to #RepealAndReplace
#Obamacare. Time to end this nightmare," the tweet said.
House Speaker Paul Ryan said in a statement that the plan
would help reform the American healthcare system.
"The American Health Care Act is a plan to drive
down costs, encourage competition, and give every American access to quality,
affordable health insurance," Ryan said. "It protects young adults,
patients with preexisting conditions, and provides a stable transition so that
no one has the rug pulled out from under them."
On the other end, Democrats were quick to criticize the
proposal. Reps. Frank Pallone and Richard Neal, the top Democrats on the House
Energy and Commerce Committee and the Ways and Means Committee, respectively,
said in a joint statement that the bill would be detrimental to average
Americans.
"The Republican repeal bill would rip healthcare
away from millions of Americans, ration care for working families and seniors,
and put insurance companies back in charge of healthcare decisions — contrary
to everything President Trump has said he would do with his healthcare
plan," the statement from Pallone and Neal said.
The bill faces a long path toward becoming law: It would
have to be marked up by the Energy and Commerce Committee, passed by the House,
debated by the Senate, and passed by the Senate, at least, before it could go
to Trump's desk.
This path is also complicated by the fact that
conservative members of the House and the Senate have come out against the
tax-credits aspects of the House bill and criticized the leaked draft. Moderate
Republicans have also criticized the lack of clarity over the future of
Medicaid expansion, which is popular in states that have undertaken expansion.
Thus, the bill released the House
GOP may face significant opposition from the Republican Party itself, to
say nothing of the Democrats.
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President Trump Signs New Travel Ban: Here's What You
Need to Know
By Katie Pavlich
The order also places a 120 day hold on U.S. refugee
acceptance from any country. From this point forward, there will be a 10-day
implementation period and the order will go into effect on March 16.
The first
executive order Trump issued three weeks ago had Iraq on the list of banned
countries, but after verification the local vetting system is capable of
keeping terrorists out of the U.S., it was taken off.
Green card holders from
countries listed in the order are exempt. Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria,
and Yemen are still on the list.
"The close cooperative relationship between the
United States and the democratically elected Iraqi government, the strong
United States diplomatic presence in Iraq, the significant presence of United
States forces in Iraq, and Iraq's commitment to combat ISIS justify different
treatment for Iraq," the order states.
"In particular, those Iraqi government
forces that have fought to regain more than half of the territory previously
dominated by ISIS have shown steadfast determination and earned enduring
respect as they battle an armed group that is the common enemy of Iraq and the
United States."
Speaking from the State Department Monday, Secretary Rex
Tillerson explained how the executive order will be implemented and asked U.S.
allies for patience.
"With this order, President Trump is exercising his
rightful authority to keep our people safe," Tillerson said. "It is
the president's solemn duty to protect the American people."
"This order is part of our ongoing efforts to
eliminate vulnerabilities that radical Islamists terrorists can and will
exploit," he continued.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Homeland Security
Secretary John Kelly also made statements explaining how the Department of
Justice will enforce the law and the executive order on behalf of keeping
Americans safe. They did not take questions from the press.
"This executive order seeks to protect the American
people as well as lawful immigrants," Sessions said. "More than 300
people who came here as refugees are under an FBI investigation today for
potential terrorism-related activities."
“The Executive Order signed today by President Trump will
make America safer, and address long-overdue concerns about the security of our
immigration system. We must undertake a rigorous review of our visa and refugee
vetting programs to increase our confidence in the entry decisions we make for
visitors and immigrants to the United States. We cannot risk the prospect of
malevolent actors using our immigration system to take American lives,"
Kelly added.
"We will continue to work closely with our operating
components and across government to implement and enforce it humanely,
respectfully, and with professionalism."
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President Trump's Weekly Address
President Trump Leads a Meeting with the U.S. House
Deputy Whip Team
President Trump's Speech Before The Joint Session of Congress
President Trump Signs H.R. 321 and H.R. 255
