Obamacare

Jan Brewer’s Medicaid (AHCCCS) expansion plan goes to Arizona Supreme Court

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Back in March, the Arizona Court of Appeals affirmed the Maricopa County Superior Court decision upholding former governor Jan Brewer’s Medicaid (AHCCCS) expansion plan in 2013. AZ Court of Appeals upholds Medicaid (AHCCCS) expansion plan.

The “Kochtopus” Death Star, the Goldwater Institute, naturally appealed to the Arizona Supreme Court.

Supreme Court Justice Clint Bolick, who was vice president for litigation at the Goldwater Institute’s Scharf-Norton Center for Constitutional Litigation at the time this lawsuit was filed, should be required to recuse himself from participating in this appeal under the court’s rules of ethics.

The parties are now filing their pleadings with the Arizona Supreme Court. Ducey administration argues to keep hospital levy paying for AHCCCS care:

The Ducey administration is asking the Arizona Supreme Court to preserve the levy that pays for an expanded Medicaid program — assuming that expansion isn’t undermined by Congress killing the program.

In legal papers filed Friday, attorney Doug Northup wants the justices to reject arguments by Republican lawmakers that money being paid by hospitals to the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System is a tax. Instead, he contends, it is simply an “assessment” on hospitals.

That difference is more than wordplay.

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Action Alert: all hands on deck to stop Senate bill to repeal ‘Obamacare’

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The next two weeks are “red alert” critical for you to focus your attention on the GOP attempts to repeal “Obamacare” and to destroy the health insurance market and Medicaid with it. GOP Senate leaders aim to bring health-care legislation to the floor by end of June: “The push has been laden with secrecy — and rank-and-file Republican senators are increasingly frustrated that Mitch McConnell and a small group of GOP aides are crafting a bill behind closed doors.”

Paul Waldman of the Washington Post explains, Why Mitch McConnell’s secrecy gambit on his health-care bill could backfire:

Right now, the Republican leadership in the Senate is undertaking an unprecedented effort to write and pass a bill to remake the entire American health-care system in secret, with not a single hearing or committee markup and with its details kept hidden even from many Republican senators. This plan was devised by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.), who is widely respected for his strategic acumen even by Democrats who believe he has a bottomless void where his soul ought to be.

But is it possible that McConnell’s plan will backfire?

I’ll explain why that might happen in a moment, but it’s important to understand that the secrecy with which this bill is being crafted is a tacit admission on Republicans’ part that its likely effects on Americans’ health care and financial security are so gruesome that it must be kept hidden until the last possible moment, lest the public have time to understand what’s in it.

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Trump speedbump to Senate repeal of ‘Obamacare’

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Last month President Trump hosted a kegger party in the White House Rose Garden to cheer the passage of the American Health Care Act with House members.

Trump said “What we have is something that is very, very, incredibly well-crafted.”

The president also promised to get it through the Senate.

“It’s going to be an unbelievable victory when we get it through the Senate, and there’s so much spirit there,” Trump said.

That was then, this is now. Yesterday, Trump calls House health bill that he celebrated in the Rose Garden ‘mean’:

President Trump told Republican senators Tuesday that the House GOP health-care bill was “mean” and he expects the Senate to “improve” the legislation considerably, according to several Republicans familiar with the gathering.

The meeting came as Senate Republicans were struggling to build support for their health-care rewrite among conservatives who are concerned that the legislation is drifting too far to the left.

Trump’s labeling of the House bill as “mean” was a significant shift of tone that followed months of private and public negotiations, during which he called the bill “great” and urged GOP lawmakers to vote for it. Following the House vote, Trump hosted an event in the Rose Garden to celebrate its passage.

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Evil GOP Bastards plot the destruction of health care in secret – call your senators

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The Beltway conventional wisdom was that the awful Zombie Trumpcare bill passed by the House was dead on arrival in the Senate, and senators would draft a more favorable bill to appeal to mythical moderate senators. Or the “Obamacare” repeal effort would die in the Senate.

Beltway conventional wisdom is almost always wrong, however, because the pundits always ignore the iron law of GOP politics: the mythical moderates always cave to the radical conservatives. That’s what makes them”mythical,” moderate Tea-Publicans do not actually exist.

Sarah Kliff reports at Vox.com, Obamacare is in real danger:

The Affordable Care Act is in deep trouble — in Washington and large swaths of the country.

Senate Republicans began to coalesce around the framework of a plan to repeal and replace the law last week. Their plan would, like the bill the House passed in May, almost certainly cause millions of low-income Americans to lose coverage by ending the Medicaid expansion. It would help the young and healthy at the expense of the older and the sick.

Senate Republican Whip John Cornyn (Texas) told reporters this past week that the Senate bill will overlap the House bill by as much as 70 or 80 percent.

Meanwhile, across the nation, health insurance plans are beginning to flee the Obamacare marketplace. They’ve cited the uncertainty around the health care law’s future, sown by congressional Republicans and the Trump administration. The number of counties with zero health plans signed up to sell 2018 coverage keeps growing.

The possibility that Republicans will repeal Obamacare or drive it into collapse is an increasingly real one. That’s a reality where millions fewer have health insurance and lower-income Americans struggle to afford coverage.

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Evil GOP bastards are still trying to destroy health care — contact your senators

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While everyone is distracted today with James Comey laying the predicate for an obstruction of justice charge against Donald Trump (and any co-conspirators), keep your eye on Congress because the evil GOP bastards (right) are still busy trying to take health care away from 24 million Americans and to destabilize the health insurance market for everyone else, with less coverage and higher premiums.

Joan McCarter at Daily Kos writes, McConnell starts fast-track process for Trumpcare in the Senate:

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) began the procedure Wednesday for fast-tracking Trumpcare to get it to the floor with a minimum of transparency and a maximum of pressure.

McConnell began the process under what is known as Rule 14, according to the Senate minority whip’s office, to allow a repeal bill to be put directly on the Senate calendar so that it is available for a floor vote when Republicans are ready to vote on it. The move comes as GOP senators continue their closed-door meetings to hash out a deal that would secure the 50 votes they’ll need to pass legislation dismantling the Affordable Care Act, which they they are pushing through a process known as reconciliation that avoids a Democratic filibuster.

Rule 14 allows a bill to bypass committees and be sent directly to the floor, without going through normal procedural requirements, like the two-day availability of a committee report prior to floor consideration. The one thing McConnell has to do is get a Congressional Budget Office score before a vote. Former Sen. Harry Reid’s Chief of Staff, Adam Jentleson (who knows McConnell as well as anyone on the Hill) agrees with our speculation that McConnell is following the Ryan model—push this thing through as fast as he can, pressuring his conference to get the 50 votes he needs.

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