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Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky.,told Newsmax TV on Thursday he remains dead set against the newly tweaked Senate healthcare bill and warned Republicans they will be clobbered with blame when their watered down version of the failing Affordable Care Act similarly begins to collapse.

"I don't think some miracle happens with this Republican plan," Paul, a Kentucky Republican, said on "Newsmax Now" with Bill Tucker. "The main thing that happens is now the . . . dysfunctional part of the marketplace is going to be blamed on Republicans.

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"The Republican bill doesn't cure the death spiral [of the Affordable Care Act]. It says, 'oh, we'll just subsidize it. We know it's still going to happen, so what we'll do is we'll take $200 billion of taxpayer money and we'll give it to the insurance companies and say, please lower your rates.'

"But if that's the Republican philosophy, we might as well be for a new car stabilization fund, so we can lower the price of cars, or a new iPhone stabilization fund, or a college stabilization fund."

Paul an eye doctor and member of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, and Labor who has long opposed anything other than a full and unconditional repeal of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) told Tucker the Senate's Better Care Reconciliation Act is a bust.

"I think Obamacare is a disaster," he said. "I think it's in a death spiral, premiums have gone through the roof, but then I look at this bill, and it's just not repeal, it keeps over half of the Obamacare taxes, it keeps most of the Obamacare regulations, it keeps most of the Obamacare subsidies.

"And it has a nearly $200 billion insurance bailout superfund, and I want to know when it became the Republican position to be for a bailout of a multi-billion-dollar private industry? I'm just not for that. I'm not for giving a penny of taxpayer money to a billion-dollar insurance industry."

Paul said he and President Donald Trump have had several conversations about the future of American healthcare and both believe there should be two separate bills.

"Have a clean repeal bill, this would be a repeal of Obamacare," Paul said. "We repeal taxes, regulations, you name it. We repeal what Obamacare was and the disaster that it is.

"And then if there are moderate Republicans or let's just call them for what they are, big government Republicans if they insist on more federal spending on bailing out the insurance companies or more federal spending on opioids, tell them to put it in a big spending bill the Democrats like.

"And they can work with the Democrats on it. Then let's be honest about this that some of us are for repeal and some are for replacing one big government program with another big government program."

The latest GOP plan, released Thursday, would provide an additional $70 billion in funding to stabilize insurance exchanges over 10 years in an effort to win over GOP holdouts who have kept the legislation in limbo. Past attempts to bring the Senate bill to a vote because of continued GOP opposition from some states.

It throws out earlier plans to repeal three Obamacare taxes on the wealthy and includes a provision allowing people to use health savings accounts to pay insurance premiums. Because of the GOP's 52-48 Senate majority, Republican leaders can lose no more than two votes and some GOP lawmakers continue to oppose the remake.

Paul said one of the great dishonesties of the Affordable Care Act is that it expanded Medicaid in many states and the federal government foots the bill. Medicaid is a social healthcare program for those with limited resources who are unable to pay for healthcare.

"The problem is the federal government doesn't have enough to pay for the existing Medicaid before you expand it. This year the federal government will be $500 billion short. Next year we're estimated to be $1 trillion short," he said.

"So when you say, oh the federal government is going to pay for Medicaid, it is dishonest and that was one of the fundamental dishonesties of Obamacare. That kind of continues under the Republican plan. They actually leave the Medicaid expansion in place.

"But eventually over about a seven-year period they shift back to letting the states pay a portion of Medicaid the way it typically is and that makes it at least a little bit more honest accounting, but we've got to wait seven or eight years to get there."

Asked how Medicare can be saved, Paul responded:

"When you look at all of the spending, two-thirds of the spending is entitlements," he said. "Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, and those programs occupy two-thirds of the spending.

"But if you add up how much they are in debt already, Medicare is said to be somewhere between $35 and $50 trillion in the hole, Social Security is said to be $7 trillion in the hole. Medicaid is perpetually in the hole because there is no specific funding source, no specific tax for Medicaid. Same with food stamps.

"So all of these things are spending more than comes in, and we were having difficulty paying for them before we got to Obamacare. There's no money for the exemption of any of the things that Obamacare wants the government to do."

The Republican plan errantly keeps a lot of those money drains, he said.

"We keep the regulations of Obamacare, most of them, we keep the subsidies, most of them, we keep most of the taxes, and we create a brand-new entitlement to bailout funds for the insurance companies," Paul said. "I wonder how anybody could seriously call it repeal.

"I've been in medicine for 20 years, and even before Obamacare people were unhappy with insurance companies and unhappy with the cost of insurance, unhappy with how healthcare was being delivered, and then they got even more unhappy after Obamacare."

That is why it is a major mistake for Republicans to "want to own this thing," he added.

"They're not going to fix the fundamental flaw of Obamacare, and that flaw is that if you tell people they can buy insurance after they get sick, they will," he said.

"And if you tell young, healthy people that they have to have 10, 15 mandates on the insurance that makes the insurance expensive, and they also know they can buy insurance after they get sick, guess what? Young people won't buy insurance, and they'll wait until they get sick. . . . I hope we start over and do a clean repeal."

2017 Newsmax. All rights reserved.

See original here:
Sen. Rand Paul to Newsmax: Senate Pushing Obamacare Bailout

Paul, a self-professed libertarian, has been loudly opposing the stabilization funding in the Republican bill for weeks. He told me a month ago he would oppose a bill with that kind of money directed to health insurers.

"If you told me I couldn't repeal everything and some of Obamacare would remain, I would vote for that as an imperfect bill," he said then. "But I'm not voting for one that has new Republican entitlement programs like that stabilization fund they're talking about is a Republican entitlement program for a billion-dollar insurance industry."

He hasn't softened at all on that position, even though most Republicans believe stabilization funding is necessary to keep the Obamacare markets functioning for a few years before they transition to a new health care system.

There have been no indications that the money will be removed in the revised bill.

"I personally believe that all of the pork that's being added to the bill is not a conservative notion," Paul told reporters on the conference call, repeatedly referring to the stabilization money as an "insurance bailout superfund."

Paul's fixation on the insurance funding separates him from Cruz and Lee, the conservatives who he is otherwise allied with. The other two are conditioning their support on a Cruz proposal that would allow health insurers to sell non-Obamacare insurance as long as they also sold plans that complied with the health care law. The policy is currently being reviewed by the Congressional Budget Office and is expected to be included in one of the two versions of the revised Senate bill released Thursday.

But Paul actually said Wednesday that the Cruz amendment could make his problems with the Senate bill worse. The policy could drive up costs for people in the Obamacare markets, as Vox's Sarah Kliff detailed, which the federal government would then have to step in and subsidize to prevent a death spiral.

"The impressions and the rumors that we're hearing is that's gonna mean a lot more money in insurance bailout fund and ultimately also mean some sort of price controls," Paul said on the conference call, adding that was "foreign to any notion of capitalism."

Paul's solution, if next week's vote fails, is to scrap any replacement provisions and focus on the parts of Obamacare that Republicans can agree to repeal. Even Collins, for example, has said some taxes on the health care industry should be scrapped because they drive up the cost of health insurance.

"I guarantee that, on repeal, Susan Collins and I have common ground," Paul said.

Then, the other Senate Republicans could work with Democrats on a different bill with other policies, like stabilization funding, that Paul opposes. The senator left it to his GOP colleagues to pass "big government spending priorities" with Democratic votes.

"Conservatives won't come onboard, or at least this conservative won't, if the bill includes an insurance bailout superfund," Paul said on his conference call.

That promise will be put to the test soon.

See original here:
Rand Paul sounds ready to kill the Senate health-care bill - CNBC

The Libertarian Republic

Rand Paul to Jeff Sessions: Uphold the Law for Industrial Hemp The Libertarian Republic In a press release published on Friday, Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) urged Attorney General Jeff Sessions to reassure industrial hemp farmers that he would uphold the law.Paul's fellow Senators Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Ron Wyden (D-OR), Al Franken (D-MN), ...

See the article here:
Rand Paul to Jeff Sessions: Uphold the Law for Industrial Hemp - The Libertarian Republic

Sen. Rand PaulRand PaulMcConnell presses holdouts: Lets vote Overnight Healthcare: McConnell warns Senate not to block repeal debate | Insurers knock Cruz proposal | WH tries to discredit CBO | Lawmakers propose .1B NIH funding boost McConnell warns Senate: Don't block ObamaCare repeal debate MORE (R-Ky.) in a new op-ed blaststhe Senate GOP's healthcare bill, saying it doesn't repeal ObamaCare.

In thepiece publishedWednesday on Breitbart News, Paul criticizedObamaCare and targetedthose in the GOP who he said are not upholding their commitment to repeal the former president's signature healthcare legislation.

Paul a vocal critic of the healthcare bill said he's not able to support the Senate GOP's proposal in its current form.

"I miss the old days, when Republicans stood for repealing Obamacare. Republicans across the country and every member of my caucus campaigned on repeal often declaring they would tear out Obamacare 'root and branch!'" Paul wrote in the op-ed.

"What happened?" he asked.

"Now too many Republicans are falling all over themselves to stuff hundreds of billions of taxpayers dollars into a bill that doesnt repeal Obamacare and feeds Big Insurance a huge bailout."

Paul then made clear that he does not believe the Senate's healthcare bill repeals ObamaCare.

"I want to repeat that so everyone realizes why Ill vote 'no' as it stands now," Paul wrote. "The Senate Obamacare bill does not repeal Obamacare. Not even close."

Instead, Paul said, the Senate GOP's healthcare bill "codifies and likely expands many aspects of Obamacare."

"One might even argue its worse than Obamacare-lite because it actually creates a giant superfund to bail out the insurance companies something even the Democrats feared to do," Paul wrote.

He added that theGOP's establishment had saidRepublicans can't repeal ObamaCare until they have all three branches of government.

"Finally, in 2016, that came to pass. Republicans now control all three branches of government," Paul wrote.

"And . . . the best that is offered is Obamacare-lite: keeping the Obamacare subsidies, keeping some of the Obamacare taxes, creating a giant insurance bailout superfund, and keeping most of the Obamacare regulations."

"Shame. Shame on many in the GOP for promising repeal and instead affirming, keeping, and, in some cases, expanding Obamacare. What a shame."

Senate Republican leaders are expected Thursday to reveal a new version of theirhealthcare legislation, known as the Better Care Reconciliation Act.

The revised legislation will include concessions to centrists and conservatives in an effort to win51 votes for passage.

Paul has also pushed forpursuing a full repeal of ObamaCare before doing a replacement, an idea also floated by President Trump.

See more here:
Rand Paul: Senate bill 'does not repeal Obamacare' - The Hill

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We dont always agree with the maverick role that U.S. Sen. Rand Paul often plays in Washington as our junior senator.

Some of his floor votes, usually against his partys position, are difficult to explain or understand but we have to give him credit for being consistent in his political philosophy.

National media often ask him to comment as a conservative voice because he gained credibility with them last year in his determined but ill-fated campaign for president.

For the record, we fully expect to see the Bowling Green eye surgeon trying again in 2020. The next time he wont be distracted by trying to keep his Senate seat at the same time.

As a physician, we believe Paul has credibility that deserves more consideration in the ongoing national health care debate.

In fact, we believe his idea of radically changing association health plans to make medical insurance more price competitive might become one of the answers to fixing Obamacare without breaking the bank.

In simple terms, an association health plan would use the purchasing power of tens of thousands of persons who belong to various organizations to negotiate with insurance companies for lower rates and better coverage.

We see the concept as group health insurance by another name. It would require major changes in existing laws governing such insurance.

Paul met recently with representatives of 25 Kentucky groups which have affiliations with almost two million Kentuckians, including employees, members and families.

Try to imagine the impact of informing the giant insurance companies that you have that much buying power.

However, insurance companies have some of the most influential lobbyists at the federal and state levels.

Putting Pauls proposal into action would be a major legislative feat but it may be the only way forward for those who want affordable insurance.

Sen. Mitch McConnell and other GOP leaders are struggling to pass the latest health care bill.

In our opinion, its time for them to get behind Sen. Pauls group buying approach to lowering health insurance costs.

The Morehead News

Read more:
Rand Paul has a good idea - Richmond Register