NPR | The Possibilities For Compromise On The Republican Health Care Plan NPR Email. March 9, 20175:10 AM ET. Heard on Morning Edition. With the Republicans' new health care plan under attack from all sides, Steve Inskeep talks to one of the architects of the Affordable Care Act, Zeke Emanuel, about the possibility of compromise. |
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The Possibilities For Compromise On The Republican Health Care Plan - NPR
She also is a former candidate for the Wisconsin state legislature. She ran as a Republican and once was anti-Obamacare. Today she says she supports it -- mostly.
"People have to be able to get to their doctors. People have to be able to get their medicine," said Koehler, "and out of any country in the world we should be doing it."
Two years ago, after losing her job, she did something she always had wanted to do; she ran for a seat in the Wisconsin State Assembly. She lost, and in the aftermath of that disappointment, got some awful news -- she had cancer. Koehler had been diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
"I was Stage 4. My prognosis was poor. I wasn't supposed to survive," she said.
When she lost her job she got health insurance through the Affordable Care Act marketplace. But she soon found that the $400 monthly bill was too high for someone who was unemployed.
So she dropped Obamacare and opted for Medicaid, under Wisconsin's BadgerCare Plus program. It's the only state in the US to adopt federal guidelines for Medicaid expansion but not accept federal money.
Koehler, recently was diagnosed with a thyroid condition possibly related to her cancer and still has three years of monitoring before she can be declared cancer free. In all her care and treatment so far has cost more than $1 million.
She has a message for Congress and President Trump as they press ahead with repealing President Obama's signature legislation. "They can be celebratory in Washington" but, she said, "it's going to have real-life implications and they have to realize that."
Dick Woodruff, who lobbies Congress on behalf of the American Cancer Society's Cancer Action Network, said under the current Republican proposal a forty-something cancer survivor making around $50,000 a year could expect to pay at least $1,000 monthly for treatment -- far above the $400 Koehler was paying in the Obamacare market.
They probably would qualify for a partial tax refund at the end of the year, but the out-of-pocket expense would likely be substantially more under the plan Congress is considering.
"The lowest income individuals who currently receive premium subsidies," said Woodruff, "are going to be losers because they're going to get fewer subsidies."
He also said Medicaid recipients -- the poorest and most vulnerable -- will likely also suffer over time.
The Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act covered some 11 million Americans -- but estimates by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities calculate the current Republican plan would cut $560 billion from the federal Medicaid program over the next decade.
Woodruff said today there are about 1.5 million Americans with cancer relying on Medicaid, many of them children.
Under the current Republican proposal "it's quite possible that as states begin to lose money ... and begin to change the enrollment requirements or eligibility requirements, particularly for single adults, some of those people could be dropped."
Koehler was born to a mother with mental illness, cycled through 19 foster homes by the time she was an adult and served 14 years in the Wisconsin National Guard. For her, surviving cancer and losing a political race were bumps in the road.
She wants to write a book about her experiences to inspire others. "Maybe down the road," she said, "when there's an open seat I will run and win."
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Cancer survivor, Republican has change of heart on Obamacare - CNN
AARP announced its opposition to the Republican proposal that would repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA), arguing that it would weaken Medicare and give special interests a sweetheart deal.
But the groups primary concern is for people who havent yet reached retirement age, highlighting one of the biggest problems with the GOPs plan to use tax credits in lieu of Obamacare subsidies. As proposed, the plan does not offer enough to help older people pay for what would become much more expensive coverage if the subsidies are scrapped and the GOPs proposals to relax current age-based caps on premiums go through.
Under the Republican proposal to offer refundable tax credits, the older and poorer you are, the bigger the check youll get from the IRS. Someone whos 64 -- too young for Medicare -- would be eligible for a $4,000 tax credit to buy a plan.
ButAARP notesthat the average premium for a person in his or her early 60s would be thousands of dollars more than that, if the current 3:1 age rating rules capping premiums for older participants are relaxed to 5:1. Under the ACA, older Americans can be charged no more than three times what younger participants with same kind of coverage are charged. The new plan would allow insurers to charge older Americans five times what they charge younger participants.
Comparing the GOP plan for tax cuts and a 5:1 age rating with the subsidies now offered under Obamacare, AARP estimates that an unmarried 64-year-old making $15,000 a year -- assuming they live in a state that has not expanded Medicaid -- would see their premiums go up $8,400 a year.
For this reason, AARP calls the bill an unaffordable age tax, and says it will have a disproportionately negative impact on poorer, middle-aged Americans.
Republican lawmakers are also drawing opposition from conservative advocacy groups.
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In an interview with CBSN's Elaine Quijano, the Koch-backed Americans for Prosperity President Tim Phillips warns that Republicans who don't act ...
Heritage Action said of the House GOP proposal that it not only accepts the flawed progressive premises of Obamacare but expands upon it. And Americans for Prosperity and Freedom Partners, both Koch-affiliated groups wrote to House Speaker Paul Ryan to say that they cannot support what they referred to as Obamacare 2.0. Club for Growth slammed the bill for failing to offer the critical free-market solution of selling health insurance across state lines and called it a warmed-over substitute for government-run health care. If the bill remains unchanged, the Club for Growth will key vote against it, a statement from the group said.
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AARP opposes health care bill - CBS News
President Donald J. Trump welcomed the House Republican Deputy Whip Team to the East Room of the White House on Monday to discuss coordinated efforts to repeal and replace Obamacare.
Obamacare, the President noted, is collapsing. Insurers continue to flee the exchanges while premiums and deductibles skyrocket. He stressed the need to take action now to deliver on Republicans long-standing promise to repeal the disastrous law and replace it with a system that adheres to principles he outlined in his recent address to a joint session of Congress.
House Majority Whip Steve Scalise thanked the President for following through on his promise to rescue people from the Obamacare disaster, and lauded last weeks address, calling it One of the best speeches I have heard from a President.
The group discussed strategy to ensure the healthcare bill passes the House and Senate. The President assured the Deputy Whip Team members that he has their back in their efforts to repeal and replace Obamacare, and he reiterated his desire for Congress to move swiftly to deliver results for the American people.
The President said he plans to reconvene the group next week to continue working closely to pass this important bill.
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Readout of President Trump's Meeting with the House Republican Deputy Whip Team - Whitehouse.gov (press release)
Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner on Tuesday said he's worried Illinois "won't do very well" if the proposed U.S. House Republican Obamacare replacement plan becomes law.
The governor's comments were his first since congressional Republicans unveiled their changes Monday. The plan would cut federal funding to Medicaid, the health insurance program for the poor and disabled paid for with state and federal dollars.
In Illinois, about 3 million, or 1 of every 4, residents are on Medicaid, including about 650,000 people insured under Medicaid expansion. The state is getting an estimated $14.1 billion in federal money this year to support traditional Medicaid and Medicaid expansion.
The House GOP plan would switch state reimbursement from a federal match to a limited amount of money, blowing a big hole in a state budget that's already severely out of whack amid a record impasse in Springfield.
Rauner referred to the proposal as "a pretty significant shift" but said he hadn't had a chance to "analyze every piece" of the legislation.
"My first blush read is Illinois won't do very well under the changes that they're recommending, which is a big concern to me," Rauner said. "I want to make sure that people in Illinois are not left in the lurch or that, you know, there's a lot of pressure to reduce insurance coverage for people in Illinois. I'm very concerned about that."
Rauner said he had spoken with fellow governors and with members of the Trump administration about his concerns regarding Medicaid, but he refused to tell reporters what those concerns were. He said he planned to talk with members of Congress and with governors "to craft a joint response or some recommendations to what's been proposed."
"It's a little early for me to publicly state what I've recommended," Rauner said.
Also Tuesday, Mayor Rahm Emanuel criticized the Republican plan, saying it would cost millions of low-income Americans their health insurance while driving up health care costs across the country.
The mayor said he discussed the bill unveiled this week by the GOP at the behest of President Donald Trump with his brother, renowned health care ethicist Ezekiel Emanuel.
"I have not had a chance to go through the whole bill, but I have read parts of it, and I at least called the family expert, my older brother," Emanuel said. "And my fears, which is true, and that is more people are going to lose health care, you're going to get away from the cost containment that has happened, and it's directly going to impact poor and working poor, or working lower middle-class access to quality care because of the way it's designed."
The mayor contrasted the Republican plan with the work he said went into crafting the Affordable Care Act known as Obamacare when he was chief of staff in the Obama White House.
"At no point in those two years did anybody ever say, 'You know what we should do? Let's cut taxes for health insurance executives.' That never came up," he said. "The entire discussion was, how do you keep health care costs under control, and how do you expand health care. Not how do you provide a tax cut to CEOs of health insurance companies and then diminish people's access to quality health care."
The plan Republicans in the House released Monday evening would phase out funding to states that use Medicaid to provide health insurance to low-income residents. It also would roll back taxes on high incomes, including a clause in Obamacare to tax insurance executives who make more than $500,000.
Obamacare has been in Republicans' crosshairs for years, and Trump has made its repeal a key part of his platform. It's far from certain this proposal unveiled by House Republicans will make it to Trump's desk, however. A handful of Republican senators have already expressed misgivings about it.
Chicago Tribune's Lisa Schencker contributed.
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Rauner: Illinois 'won't do very well' under Republican health insurance plan - Chicago Tribune