Tag: trumpcare

The GOP Has Officially Engineered a Children’s Health-Care Crisis

workfornow:

seandotpolitics:

On September 30, federal funding for the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) expired. Congressional Republicans claimed that they didn’t want this to happen — they just got so caught up with trying to repeal Obamacare (a.k.a. trying to take health care away from millions of adults) that they forgot to preserve access to basic medical care for 9 million low-income children. Regardless, the public had no need to worry: States had enough money to keep CHIP running for the rest of the year, and Republicans would reauthorize the program with all due haste.

Nearly two months later, congressional Republicans are so caught up with trying to cut taxes on corporations (while taking health care away from millions of adults), they haven’t quite found time to renew CHIP.

In at least 11 states, funds allocated for CHIP will run out by January’s end. A majority of states will be bereft of funds for the program by April. But throughout the country, the program is already in a state of crisis.

On Monday, working-class families in Colorado received lettersencouraging them to look into private insurance options, as their children could soon be tossed off government health care. Several other states will send out similar letters this week.

These missives won’t just be a short-term worry for working families who already have more than enough worries — they also threaten to undermine CHIP in the long-term…

Meanwhile, states are already wasting money and personnel hours on contingency plans for CHIP’s demise. Some have stopped pushing eligible families to sign up for the program, a development that could lead to many more low-income children going without coverage, even if the program gets reauthorized in December: If states don’t spend time and money spreading awareness of the program, many parents will fail to take advantage of it.

And it’s far from certain that CHIP will get funded…

In Texas it’s estimated the 30 days notice that your kids’ coverage will disappear will go out Dec. 22. Merry fucking Christmas.

btw, in case you didn’t know this:

CHIP is a BLOCK GRANT health insurance program.  

That means, unlike Medicaid/Medicare which is funded through an “ongoing funding stream,” CHIP’s block grant has to be re-authorized by Congress every few years.  Every few years, it runs the risk of becoming a casualty of political wrangling like you see now.  

CHIP provides insurance for about 9 million people.  

Now, remember the abomination that was Trumpcare and the Republican’s proposal to make Medicaid a block grant program?  

Medicaid serves 70 million people.  Imagine THAT being in the same situation as CHIP is in right now.  The consequences are potentially catastrophic for insurees, state governments, health care systems, etc.  Medicaid becomes “too big to fail” as a block grant, making it a huge chip in the Republican bank the next time the want to play chicken with the Democrats around funding social programs.

The GOP Has Officially Engineered a Children’s Health-Care Crisis

The Return of Trumpcare: Tax Rate Slasher

anexplanationofunfortunateevents:

Congress
has added to its tax cuts bill, which is already terrible, provisions which would effectively gut the Affordable Care Act.

You
don’t actually have to understand any more of this. This is
terrible and it’s happening fast. You can stop right now to call
your representative and read a call script (Democrat/Republican) that tells them no way. Then help spread the word. 

If
you are trying to follow the news this week, here are the key points
you’re going to want to know:

Keep reading

Senate Obamacare Repeal Hearing Overwhelmed by Protests

The line to get into the one and only hearing on Graham-Cassidy, Republican senators’ last-ditch effort to repeal Obamacare, filled two lengthy hallways in the Dirksen Senate Office Building on Monday. Not “spanned” two hallways—filled. Wheelchairs, three-deep, clogged the corridor; police stood shoulder to shoulder to protect a narrow walkway for people to pass.

Several of the protesters at the front of the line told me that they claimed their spaces at 5 a.m. Monday morning. They were with ADAPT, an organization of disability rights activists. As one woman told me, it takes those in wheelchairs a little bit longer to get ready in the morning, so their wake-up call came at 2:30 a.m. About 10 to 15 of those in wheelchairs were able to get into the hearing room, nearly 12 hours after they woke up.

They weren’t wasting any time. The second that Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch tried to begin the hearing, the ADAPT protesters began to shout, “NO cuts to Medicaid, save our liberty!” They are still, about an hour later as I write this, chanting it in the hallways of Dirksen. It took Capitol police about 20 minutes to escort all of those disrupting the proceedings out of the room.

Some protesters followed the police officers’ order to leave. Others didn’t. At least one man would not move and police could not figure out how to unlock his wheelchair. He was picked up and carried out by about half a dozen officers. Others just made it difficult for the police.

Graham-Cassidy Health Care Hearing Starts With Eruption Of Protests

September 25, 20171:56 PM ET

SCOTT HORSLEY

Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, suspended the hearing for about 15 minutes while the demonstrators — some in wheelchairs — were dragged from the room.

“If the hearing is going to devolve into a sideshow or a forum for simply putting partisan points on the board, there’s absolutely no reason for us to be here,” Hatch said.

Senate Obamacare Repeal Hearing Overwhelmed by Protests

New version of health-care bill will help Alaska and Maine — home of two holdout senators

The Cassidy-Graham bill overhauls the Affordable Care Act by lumping together spending on subsidies and Medicaid expansion and redistributing it to states in the form of block grants. Alaska would get 3 percent more funding between 2020 and 2026 and Maine would get 43 percent more funding during that time period, according to a summary of the revised legislation obtained Sunday by The Washington Post.

Republican senators from both states, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine, have said they want to understand how Cassidy-Graham would affect their states before supporting the bill. Both have expressed deep opposition to cuts to health-care spending under previous versions. Independent analysts had estimated that both states would lose federal funding under the earlier Cassidy-Graham bill.

New version of health-care bill will help Alaska and Maine — home of two holdout senators

The following statement was jointly released on September 23, 2017

Who essentially reinforce all of the points made about the Graham-Cassidy bill that we’ve seen before.  It’s just significant that they are now being made by every large medical industry association and they’re calling for a bipartisan solution.

This joins the September 21, 2017 statement of the Board of Directors of the National Association of Medicaid Directors (state government staff who administer their state’s Medicaid programs).  

Who essential make the points that:

  1. Medicaid is, on average, 25% of a state’s budget.  Basically, the legislation proposes to hand over less money for states to run the Medicaid programs while not making any changes to Medicaid regulations to account for the fact that the state will have less money to run it.  This would “constitute the largest intergovernmental transfer of financial risk from the federal government to the states in our country’s history.”  
  2. States being required to have their completely new and innovative (if states are the labs then we are expecting innovation) administration of these block grants in place by 2020 is unreasonable, particularly considering there will be no federal funding to cover the manpower necessary to make it happen.
  3. Quit rushing it.  This bill is crap.  If you’re going to do it, do it right and don’t throw the states under the bus. 

The following statement was jointly released on September 23, 2017

Behind New Obamacare Repeal Vote: ‘Furious’ G.O.P. Donors

WASHINGTON — As more than 40 subdued Republican senators lunched on Chick-fil-A at a closed-door session last week, Senator Cory Gardner of Colorado painted a dire picture for his colleagues. Campaign fund-raising was drying up, he said, because of widespread disappointment among donors over the inability of the Republican Senate to repeal the Affordable Care Act or do much of anything else. 

Mr. Gardner is in charge of his party’s midterm re-election push, and he warned that donors of all stripes were refusing to contribute another penny until the struggling majority produced some concrete results.

“Donors are furious,” one person knowledgeable about the private meeting quoted Mr. Gardner as saying. “We haven’t kept our promise.” … 

One party official noted that Senate Republicans had a lucrative March, raising $7 million — an off-year record for the organization. But in the aftermath of the failed health repeal effort before the August recess and other setbacks, the take dropped to $2 million in July and August — a poor showing for a majority party with a decided advantage on the midterm map. 

The totals have left Republicans increasingly worried about having the funds they need next year. Mr. Gardner told his colleagues that a major Colorado contributor who played a role in his own campaign says party donors are reluctant to give any more money until congressional Republicans demonstrate results.

Behind New Obamacare Repeal Vote: ‘Furious’ G.O.P. Donors

NationalADAPT on Twitter

From New Mobility: Life Beyond Wheels – ADAPT Activists Arrested at Senate Health Care Protest

from Huffpost: Police Haul Off Protesters, Some With Disabilities, From Mitch mcConnell’s Office

                                                             ~
                                         ADAPT gofundme page
                                                             ~

NationalADAPT on Twitter

Why is Mitch McConnell still calling for a health-care vote? – The Washington Post

hearseeno:

“There are no longer any good outcomes for McConnell — politically speaking. There are bad ones and less bad ones. And putting the onus on other senators means there will be more blame to go around when all of it comes to an end.”

…

The effort to “repeal and immediately replace” Obamacare “will not be successful,” McConnell admitted. In its place in the coming days, he would call for a vote to open debate on the House-passed bill — unpopular among most senators — with the aim of amending that bill with the straight-up repeal bill that his more conservative members desire.

…

He was giving the conservatives the chance to vote on a straight-up repeal. But first they would have to record their vote for a House bill they loathe. 

[with no guarantees that the amendments attached to the bill as a result of the open debate will be the ones they want – a repeal amendment that may not pass versus other possible amendments that could pass]

It’s all about shifting blame.  If ultraconservatives vote “no” = no debate, McConnell can put the blame on their shoulders.  If the ultraconservatives vote “yes” = start a debate on the House bill, they are potentially back in business if enough moderates vote “yes,” too.  Either way, McConnell has given himself options for finger-pointing and lessening the effect of his failure on his power.

Why is Mitch McConnell still calling for a health-care vote? – The Washington Post

Why is Mitch McConnell still calling for a health-care vote? – The Washington Post

“There are no longer any good outcomes for McConnell — politically speaking. There are bad ones and less bad ones. And putting the onus on other senators means there will be more blame to go around when all of it comes to an end.”

…

The effort to “repeal and immediately replace” Obamacare “will not be successful,” McConnell admitted. In its place in the coming days, he would call for a vote to open debate on the House-passed bill — unpopular among most senators — with the aim of amending that bill with the straight-up repeal bill that his more conservative members desire.

…

He was giving the conservatives the chance to vote on a straight-up repeal. But first they would have to record their vote for a House bill they loathe. 

[with no guarantees that the amendments attached to the bill as a result of the open debate will be the ones they want – a repeal amendment that may not pass versus other possible amendments that could pass]

It’s all about shifting blame.  If ultraconservatives vote “no” = no debate, McConnell can put the blame on their shoulders.  If the ultraconservatives vote “yes” = start a debate on the House bill, they are potentially back in business if enough moderates vote “yes,” too.  Either way, McConnell has given himself options for finger-pointing and lessening the effect of his failure on his power.

Why is Mitch McConnell still calling for a health-care vote? – The Washington Post