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GOP Obamacare replacement bill is even worse than everyone expected

March 8, 2017March 7, 2017 by AZ BlueMeanie

Last week, Senator Aqua Buddha, Rand Paul (R-KY), went all Indiana Jones in search of the top secret GOP Obamacare replacement bill being held under guard in a secure location in the Capitol. I kid you not. Rand Paul still searching for Obamacare replacement bill:

Thursday, Sen. Paul tried to track down a copy of the draft, but he said he was denied access to a room when aides inside told the senator there wasn’t a bill to see. At one point, a GOP staff member allowed House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, of Maryland, Massachusetts Rep. Joe Kennedy and a dozen or so reporters into the room to inspect it themselves to see that it was, in fact, bill-less.

“This should be an open and transparent process,” Paul said Thursday following his search. “This is being presented as if it were a national secret, as if this was a plot to invade another country, as if this were national security. That’s wrong.”

Paul wasn’t alone in his health care escapade. Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer went live on Facebook Thursday in search of the legislation and Rep. Nancy Pelosi also tweeted in support of the search.

“I’m looking for the House GOP’s secret ACA repeal bill since they are hiding it from Members and the public,” Hoyer posted on Facebook.

On Monday, GOP leadership released its Obamacare replacement bill from its secret Capitol basement lair. They should have left it there never to be seen in public.

AZ Court of Appeals to hear Medicaid (AHCCCS) expansion appeal on Arizona statehood day

February 14, 2017 by AZ BlueMeanie

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). Biggs v. Betlach (1 CA-CV 15-0743), is scheduled for oral argument today before the Court of Appeals Division One in Department A in Courtroom 1 at 9:30 a.m.

I 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.

Repeal of ‘Obamacare’ would cause job losses and a ‘$5 billion hole’ in the Arizona economy

February 9, 2017 by AZ BlueMeanie

Whenever you talk about healthcare in the United States, keep in mind that it currently makes up 17 percent of the nation’s GDP, and represents the fastest growing sector of the economy. Healthcare to Become the Largest Employment Sector of the U.S. Economy: According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, healthcare jobs and industries are “expected to have the fastest employment growth and to add the most jobs between 2014 and 2024.”

An analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that 6.3 million of the 11.5 million Americans who used the ACA marketplace to buy their insurance last year live in Republican Congressional districts.

Policy analysts say that a rollback of the ACA would hurt older and rural Americans — the two populations that favored Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton in the presidential election. Trump Voters Stand to Suffer Most From Obamacare Repeal:

Donald Trump’s most ardent supporters are likely to be hit the hardest if he makes good on his promise to dismantle the Affordable Care Act[.]

“I think you’re going to get a disproportionate impact on people who supported Donald Trump but maybe don’t realize that his policies may end up hurting them instead of helping them,” said Michael O. Moore, a professor of economics and international affairs at George Washington University.

GOP has no ‘Obamacare’ replacement plan as repeal falters

February 8, 2017 by AZ BlueMeanie

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.

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

January 19, 2017 by AZ BlueMeanie

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.

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.