Obamacare

GOP has no ‘Obamacare’ replacement plan as repeal falters

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Remember when GOP congressional leaders said they would repeal the Affordable Care Act aka “Obamacare” by January 27th? Yeah, that didn’t happen. Republicans miss own deadline to begin repeal of Obamacare. They later asserted the deadline was just a “placeholder” on the calendar.

Tea-Publicans blamed our Dear Leader Donald Trump, in part, because he told the Washington Post in an interview in mid-January before his inauguration that he was nearing completion of a plan to replace President Obama’s signature health-care law with the goal of “insurance for everybody.” (Trump declined to reveal specifics in the telephone interview with the Washington Post).

Like everything else this egomaniacal Twitter troll says, it was a lie. He had no plan, he never did.

This week, Trump Says Health Law Replacement May Not Be Ready Until Next Year:

President Trump said in an interview that aired on Sunday that a replacement health care law was not likely to be ready until either the end of this year or in 2018, a major shift from promises by both him and Republican leaders to repeal and replace the law as soon as possible.

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ACA repeal is a tax windfall to the wealthy – and you will pay for it

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I have previously explained that the GOP’s headlong rush to repeal the Affordable Care Act aka “ObamaCare” is actually about repealing the taxes on the very wealthy that help pay for the program. The “blue-collar working class voters” who elected these Tea-Publicans to office will not only lose their health care coverage, they will wind up paying higher taxes as the wealthy receive a huge tax windfall. These voters got played, and the best part is, they did it to themselves.

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Jared Bernstein fleshes this out today with new data in How Republican-style health-care reform quickly becomes a tax cut for the richest of the rich:

The election of Donald Trump with a Republican-majority Congress is proving once again that conservative economic policy largely reduces to cutting taxes, mostly for the rich.

But wait a second, aren’t they also wading into health-care reform?

They are, and it proves my point. While much attention is reasonably focused on how they’re all repeal with no replace — and how that’s likely to reverse the coverage gains we’ve seen and undermine insurance markets — there’s something else going on here. And that is — you guessed it — a big tax cut for the rich.

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GOP Obamacare repeal will unleash a health-care calamity on the nation

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ObamacareSenate Democrats asked the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) to prepare a report on what would happen if the Republican Affordable Care Act aka “ObamaCare” repeal bill was passed and implemented.

I know you are saying to yourself, “wait, the GOP doesn’t have any ACA replacement plan to score,” but the budget office relied on a 2015 bill that the House GOP actually did pass which is still the basis of repeal efforts.

The result would be to unleash a health-care calamity on the nation. 18 million would lose insurance in first year of Obamacare repeal without replacement, CBO report says:

At least 18 million people would lose health insurance in the first year if Republicans move ahead with plans to repeal major portions of the Affordable Care Act without a replacement plan, estimates a report from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

The number of people without insurance would grow to about 32 million within the first decade if congressional Republicans follow a 2015 plan to repeal the health-care law without an alternative, the new report says. It also estimates that health insurance premiums for people buying individual non-group coverage would double within a decade, further complicating GOP promises that people will not lose coverage under their plan.

The report was an update of a previous analysis of the 2015 repeal legislation.

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Medicaid (AHCCCS) expansion case to be reviewed by the Court of Appeals

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The long-delayed lawsuit by our Tea-Publican legislators and the Goldwater Instititute against Governor Jan Brewer’s Medicaid (AHCCCS) expansion plan, Biggs, et al v. Brewer, et al. (CV2013-011699 Maricopa County Superior Court), is coming up for review before the Court of Appeals in February.

Cartoon_08I have previously explained that this case is ostensibly about the Obamacare medicaid expansion plan, but is really about preserving the GOP’s weapon of mass destruction, Prop. 108 (1992), the “Two-Thirds for Taxes” Amendment. AZ Court of Appeals revives GOP legislators’ challenge to Gov. Brewer’s Medicaid (AHCCCS) expansion; Medicaid (AHCCCS) expansion case set for hearing on July 30, 2015.

The Maricopa County Superior Court rejected the arguments of Tea-Publican legislators and the Goldwater Institute in August of last year. Superior Court judge upholds Brewer’s Medicaid expansion:

A Maricopa County Superior Court judge upheld former Gov. Jan Brewer’s 2013 Medicaid expansion plan, ruling that a hospital assessment that funds the program is not subject to a provision in the Arizona Constitution that requires a two-thirds vote in the Legislature for a tax increase.

Judge Douglas Gerlach ruled that HB2010 did not violate the supermajority provision, which voters approved in 1992 as Proposition 108, because it is not a tax and falls under an exemption to the two-thirds vote requirement.

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Senate begins work to repeal ‘ObamaCare’ and to defund Planned Parenthood through the budget reconciliation process

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I warned you about this months ago.  The authoritarian Tea-Publcians intend to use the budget reconciliation process to complete the budget that the last Congress failed to pass as the vehicle for repealing the Affordable Care Act aka “ObamamCare” and to give their wealthy benefactors a massive tax cut. They have also now added defunding Planned Parenthood to the reconciliation bill.

The reason for this is that under the budget reconciliation process, it only requires a simple majority vote and there is no filibuster in the Senate. Eddie Munster’s Monstrous Plan for America (snippet):

POLITICO Tiger Beat on The Potomac, reports Ryan plans to steamroll Democrats with budget tool:

If Donald Trump is elected president and Republicans hold onto Congress, House Speaker Paul Ryan is bluntly promising to ram a partisan agenda through Capitol Hill next year, with Obamacare repeal and trillion-dollar tax cuts likely at the top of the list. And Democrats would be utterly defenseless to stop them.

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EddieMunsterRyan peeled back the curtain on his strategy at a news conference last week after a reporter suggested he would struggle to implement his ambitious agenda next year. After all, it was noted, Republicans are certain to lack the 60 votes needed in the Senate to break Democratic filibusters on legislation. So Ryan gave a minitutorial on congressional rules and the bazooka in his pocket for the assembled reporters.

“This is our plan for 2017,” Ryan said, waving a copy of his “Better Way” policy agenda. “Much of this you can do through budget reconciliation.” He explained that key pieces are “fiscal in nature,” meaning they can be moved quickly through a budget maneuver that requires a simple majority in the Senate and House. “This is our game plan for 2017,” Ryan said again to the seemingly unconvinced press.

The New York Times has an explainer piece on The Parliamentary Tactic That Could Obliterate Obamacare.

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