COVID-19 & Healthcare

CAP ‘poison pill’ amendment approved by House Appropriations Committee

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

TalibanThe Arizona House Appropriations Committee began its hearing today with the eleventh hour "strike everything amendment" to SB 1069 for the benefit of the Mullah Cathi Herrod and her Christian Taliban at the Center for Arizona Policy (CAP) to allow the
Arizona Department of Health Services to conduct unannounced
inspections of abortion clinics, in violation of a 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision in Tucson Women’s Clinic v. Eden (2004) which does not allow surprise inspections without an administrative warrant. The strike-everything amendment would also require AHCCCS to conduct financial audits of Medicaid providers to ensure that the money isn’t being co-mingled.

Sen. Nancy Barto (R-Phoenix) briefly testified in support of the amendment, citing convicted Dr. Kermit Gosnell as a reason for this untimely amendment, and a secretly recorded video by the anti-abortion organization Live Action, between a pregnant woman
and a doctor and counselor at the Family Planning Associates Medical Group at a Phoenix abortion clinic.

Bryan Howard, CEO of Planned Parenthood, testified against the "strike everything amendment" on the basis of language restricting Medicaid funds — it is unnecessary (unannounced inspections are already provided by law) and illegal under the 2004 9th Circuit decision. It is also unconstitutional under the 4th Amendment.

Howard cited the recent U.S. Supreme Court denial of cert from an Indiana case in which the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals struck down a law that prevents Medicaid recipients from being reimbursed for health services at Planned Parenthood because some of its clinics offer abortions.

The House’s price for Medicaid restoration coming into focus

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By Craig McDermott, cross-posted from Random Musings

After much posturing on the part of most of the Republicans in the AZ House of Representatives (which is a continuous activity there), the state budget/Medicaid restoration package of bills passed by the Senate three weeks ago is finally moving.

Well, one of the bills, anyway…

An agenda has been posted for a meeting of the House Appropriations Committee for Monday morning at 10 a.m. in HHR1.

The agenda has two bills, and only one of them is related to the budget.  Related directly, anyway –

SB1492, the budget bill with the Medicaid restoration language; and part of the price –

A striker to SB1069, with language from the Center for Arizona Theocracy Policy that both attacks abortion clinics and bars Medicaid providers from performing abortions.

In
addition, while no amendment language has been posted as of this
writing, don't be shocked if there is a move to removed the Medicaid
language from SB1492.

Action Alert: House Appropriations Committee takes up Medicaid (AHCCCS) restoration/expansion on Monday – and a poison pill from CAP

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

TalibanThe House Appropriations Committee is scheduled to meet on Monday, June 10 at 10:00 a.m. in Room HHR 1 to take up the appropriations bill which includes Governor Jan Brewer's Medicaid (AHCCCS) restoration/expansion plan, SB 1492.

The Committee Chairman, John Kavanaugh, R-Fountain Hills, the man who sponsored the "show me your papers before you pee" bill, has also agreed to take up a "strike everything amendment" to SB 1069 (CPS; psychological assessments and services) as a vehicle for Mullah Cathi Herrod and her Christian Taliban at the Center for Arizona Policy (CAP) to insert a poison pill amendment to limit abortion providers’ ability to participate in Gov. Jan Brewer’s Medicaid expansion plan that Governor Brewer earlier rejected as unnecessary.

Your presence at this critical committee hearing is requested. It is time for a show of force against the opponents of Medicaid (AHCCCS) restoration/expansion who dare to call themselves "Christians." WWJD? (Matthew 25:31-46).

The Arizona Capitol Times (subscription required) reports Medicaid
anti-abortion language returns in House Approps:

A pro-life forced birth bill scheduled for a hearing in the House Appropriations Committee includes language that is nearly identical to a proposal from a leading evangelical Christian group that sought to limit abortion providers’ ability to participate in Gov. Jan Brewer’s Medicaid expansion plan.

The strike-everything amendment to SB1069 would prohibit funds from the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System from being used to “directly or indirectly” subsidize abortions, including the use of Medicaid money on administrative expenses such as building rent, employee salaries and utility costs by abortion providers. House Appropriations Chairman Rep. John Kavanagh, who sponsored the amendment, said the language was requested by the Center for Arizona Policy.

The cost of rejecting expanded Medicaid

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Ezra Klein reports on a new study by the Rand Corporation today in the Wonkbook: The terrible deal for states rejecting Medicaid:

Curious why some hardcore conservative governors, including Jan
Brewer of Arizona and Rick Scott of Florida, are fighting with their
legislators to accept Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion? A new study in the journal Health Affairs article will clear it up.

The study, by the Rand corporation, looks at the 14 states that have
said they will opt out of the new Medicaid funds. It finds that the
result will be they get $8.4 billion less in federal funding, have to
spend an extra $1 billion in uncompensated care, and end up with about
3.6 million fewer insured residents.

So then, the math works out like this: States rejecting the expansion
will spend much more, get much, much less, and leave millions of their
residents uninsured. That’s a lot of self-inflicted pain to make a
political point.

Conservative economics fraud re: ObamaCare

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Last month there was the economics debunking of the Reinhart-Rogoff thesis, which led to a back and forth argument between traditional economists (Keynesians) and conservative economists. In the end, Reinhart-Rogoff were proved wrong and Paul Krugman proved right. Of course, the conservative economists refused to concede they were wrong. For them it is a matter of faith, not science (which means they should not be taken seriously as economists).

This month, a new economics back and forth argument has developed between economists. Karoli reports Forbes Tells The Truth, Then Lies About Obamacare:

Last week, Forbes blogger Rick Ungar admitted he was wrong about Obamacare and insurance rates, following the news that California's rates were actually less than expected.

For quite some time, I have been predicting that
Obamacare would likely mean higher insurance rates in the individual
market for the “young immortals” and others under the age of 40. At the
same time, my expectation was that those who fall into the older age
ranges would benefit greatly as their premium charges would be lowered
thanks to the Affordable Care Act.

It is increasingly clear that I had it wrong.

That must have come as a shock to the Forbes community, so they quickly put Avik Roy, their corporate pharma shill, on the job. His post making the claim that rates double is incredibly disingenuous on a number of levels.

If you’re a 25 year old male non-smoker, buying insurance
for yourself, the cheapest plan on Obamacare’s exchanges is the
catastrophic plan, which costs an average of $184 a month. (By
“average,” I mean the median monthly premium across California’s 19
insurance rating regions.)

The next cheapest plan, the “bronze” comprehensive plan, costs $205 a
month. But in 2013, on eHealthInsurance.com (NASDAQ:EHTH), the median
cost of the five cheapest plans was only $92.

In other words, for the typical 25-year-old male non-smoking
Californian, Obamacare will drive premiums up by between 100 and 123
percent.

Under Obamacare, only people under the age of 30 can participate in
the slightly cheaper catastrophic plan. So if you’re 40, your cheapest
option is the bronze plan. In California, the median price of a bronze
plan for a 40-year-old male non-smoker will be $261.