U.S. Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) is surrounded by members of the media after she viewed the details of the new health care bill July 13, 2017 at the Capitol in Washington, D.C. Several Republican senators spoke out against the plan, including Senator Susan Collins of ME, who said safeguards for americans need to be stronger. She said it’s “very difficult” to stand with the party’s effort of repealing the bill.
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The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office is expected to publish a preliminary analysis of the Republican measure early this week. Ted Cruz have said through aides that they oppose the latest version of the bill. Graham-Cassidy eliminates all protections for those with pre-existing conditions, opens the way to gutting essential health benefits (creating a patchwork of plans across the 50 states), ends Medicaid expansion, cuts Medicaid to below ACA levels, and repeals the individual mandate.
Republicans face a deadline Saturday when a special budget rule expires that would allow Republicans to pass a repeal on a party-line vote.
An updated version of the Graham-Cassidy healthcare bill is being introduced Monday and includes more benefits for Alaska in order to entice Sen. John McCain and Rand Paul have already publicly opposed the bill. The trick of comparing dollar numbers over time to hide huge benefit cuts has, as I already noted, been around since the 1990s.
The bill would repeal the subsidies to help lower income people to pay out-of-pocket costs like deductibles and co-payments.
All this harm is foreseen, but unlike unstoppable threats such as hurricanes, this threat can be stopped – by working to halt or voting against an immoderate, heedless, deeply damaging bill that will harm most states.
Paul objected to a key provision of the bill, under which Obamacare funding would be granted to states in blocs for them to decide how to spend, rather than be managed by the federal government. 129, which allows the state with the highest separate poverty guideline – Alaska – to receive a 25 percent hike in federal matching funds for Medicaid. Opposition to the Graham-Cassidy plan grew on Sunday. The uncertainty of what will happen in Congress has caused panic among the insurance companies and they are either pulling out of the federal exchanges or considering huge premium increases for 2018.
Trump bemoaned that Republicans “repeal and replaced 61 times…but it didn’t matter because Obama was in office”. States would either make up the difference, or leave a portion of those in need without coverage.
“I’m just not for this block-granting concept”, he said. Among the states to get the added money are ME and Alaska. Sen. As of Friday, Murkowksi’s staff said the senator was undecided and planned to take the weekend to review the legislation. “When I ran, I was told I’d have a bill on my desk and I’d sign it on Day 1”.
The bill creates a dizzyingly complex formula for the funds now being spent on the ACA, which is meant to draw money away from wealthier states (that mostly expanded Medicaid under the health law) toward poorer ones (that mostly did not).
US Republicans have made changes to their new bill to replace Obamacare, hoping to keep it alive after being rejected by Republican bigwigs like Senators Arizona Senator John McCain.
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In an attempt to win over dissident senators, top Republicans have added more money to the bill and eased coverage requirements. They cited a study by the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank, estimating that the bill would result in 32 million fewer Americans having health insurance in 2027, including more than 650,000 who would lose coverage in Washington.
