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Hundreds of thousands of immigrants could be locked out of the health insurance marketplaces if the Senates new health-care bill becomes law.

Buried among the bills provisions that roll back the Medicaid expansion and lower marketplace subsidies is a shift in eligibility requirements. Rather than all legal immigrants being able to receive tax credits and buy coverage in the marketplace like under the Affordable Care Act, the new bill aside from a few, narrow exceptions allows only permanent residents and people who immigrated for humanitarian reasons to participate.

Many of the newly excluded people on temporary visas would face a dramatic reduction in insurance options. Temporary students and workers are often in roles, such as seasonal farm work, where pay is too low to afford insurance without assistance, according to Labor Department data. Given their ineligibility for Medicaid, the marketplaces were often their only option.

Though some students would have insurance available through their schools, though, and workers especially high-skilled ones through their employers.

This proposal would really attack people at the time they need it most, said Matthew Lopas, a health policy attorney for the National Immigration Law Center, referring to excluded groups such as asylee applicants and torture victims.

Conservatives defend the exclusion, saying it prevents medical tourism where sick people move to the U.S. temporarily to get subsidized medical care but dont stay in the insurance pool while theyre healthy. For people to jump in, file a claim, and jump out, its very destabilizing for the market, said Ed Haislmaier, a research fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation.

Tom Miller, a fellow at the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute, said the exclusion reflects a view common among Republicans that there should be a difference between benefits available to citizens and noncitizens. Lopas described the exclusion more harshly: The program is based on anti-immigrant sentiment, an idea that some people are more worthy than others.

More than a third of legal immigrants were eligible for tax credits in 2015, many of whom would lose them under the Senate bill. The logical conclusion: Id expect that the rate of insurance among immigrants would fall, said Shelby Gonzales, a policy analyst at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Its already more common for foreign nationals to be uninsured: 23 percent of non-elderly legal immigrants are uninsured, compared to 10 percent of citizens.

The exclusion isnt just bad for the affected immigrants, its bad for the insurance pool as a whole, according to Lopas. Having a pool with more people, especially more young people which students and temporary workers tend to be makes the insurers expenses more stable and brings down costs for everyone. How much costs may change, however, depends on how many people would have to leave the market, which there isnt much data on.

It remains unclear whether the Senate GOPs bill will pass. Republicans will need almost all of their members to support it, but several senators have already expressed concern or outright opposition.

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Republicans' Obamacare repeal bill would bar some immigrants from buying insurance on the exchanges - Washington Post

House Republicans, already divided on how to handle the federal budget, the debt limit, a rewrite of the tax code and more, have something new to tussle over: their summer vacation.

The decision announced Tuesday by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to curtail that chambers recess by two weeks from July 28 to Aug. 11 to tackle unfinished business was not immediately embraced by House leaders.

Inside a closed-door meeting of House Republicans on Wednesday morning, Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) indicated that he intended to keep members around only so long as it might take them to act on the health-care bill pending in the Senate.

The case McCarthy made privately, and later publicly to reporters, was simple: The Senate still might have work to do, but the House has done plenty.

The House has passed its version of the health-care legislation, as well as major bills dismantling the Dodd-Frank financial regulation law, scaling back federal regulatory powers and cracking down on illegal immigration. The chamber is also set to clear the annual military authorization bill by weeks end.

(Jenny Starrs/The Washington Post)

We will continue to do our work here, and we hope the Senate continues to do their work as we move forward, he said, waving a chart showing that 226 bills passed by the House this year await Senate action.

McConnell indicated Tuesday that the Senate needed the extra time to process the defense bill and clear a backlog of executive nominations that the House does not constitutionally act on.

But a handful of House Republicans mostly conservative hard-liners are pressing their leaders to keep working through August to tackle major pieces of unfinished business.

Those include the annual budget resolution, which is a key prerequisite for a tax-revamp bill expected to dominate the falls legislative agenda, as well as a necessary increase in the federal debt ceiling.

If we dont have results, then we shouldnt have a recess, said Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), chairman of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus.

Weve done some good brush-clearing, but weve got major, major timber left to cut, said Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), another Freedom Caucus member.

Folks in the real world that have to go to a job every day dont get to take a vacation if their job doesnt get done, said Rep. Rob Wittman (R-Va.), who is lending support to the Freedom Caucuss anti-recess push.

Their push is being met with sighs and eye rolls from some veteran Republican lawmakers, who have heard plenty of calls to cancel recess over the years typically from the minority party and are not eager to give up time spent with family and constituents without a clear legislative payoff.

If theres a chance of coming up with a work product that we could vote on, that would be worth it, said Rep. Joe Barton (R-Tex.), a 32-year House veteran. But if its just being done for optical purposes, it really hurts the families.

Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Tex.), chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, told reporters Tuesday that hed prefer members spend their August honing their sales pitch for the tax bill.

Private talks are underway between GOP leaders on Capitol Hill and key White House players to set the parameters for the tax bill, with an eye toward drafting the complex legislation during the August break.

I think August is a perfect opportunity for us to be listening and engaging with our constituents back home and building support for tax reform, Brady said.

And then there is the health-care bill: Several Freedom Caucus members said Wednesday that they could not comprehend leaving Washington for the summer without finishing the bill, even as it languishes in the Senate with no clear path to passage there.

But the most divisive matters inside the GOP concern federal spending the budget, the yearly appropriations bills and the debt limit, which in recent years have been resolved through negotiations with Democrats.

Senate Democrats can still filibuster spending bills and the debt limit, but conservatives are bristling at the prospect of letting Democrats dictate terms when Republicans control both chambers of Congress and the White House. They say taking action now on the fiscal matters, rather than against fall deadlines, would give the GOP more leverage.

Perhaps no House member has more at stake in the recess debate than Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.), who is standing in an Aug. 15 special election for the Senate seat vacated by Attorney General Jeff Sessions and would prefer to spend next month on the campaign trail not in Washington.

Brooks, an outspoken Freedom Caucus member, did not join his compatriots at the Wednesday news conference, and he made clear in an interview Tuesday that he did not share their views on the virtues of a working summer.

If there are important votes, Im going to be here, he said, but he added that he didnt see the point of spending the recess working on fiscal bills that are unlikely to be resolved ahead of the relevant deadlines.

I wish it wasnt that way, but historically thats the way its been, and I dont see any kind of session in August that going to change when the bills are passed, Brooks said.

Read more at PowerPost

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Summer vacation is one more thing for House Republicans to fight about - Washington Post

News & Observer (blog)

Republicans once united against the ACA are now divided by it News & Observer (blog) The star of the picture was N.C. Rep. Mark Meadows, who represents a swath of the mountains that includes lots of rich retirees and other conservative Republicans who have cheered Meadows as much as they have jeered former President Barack Obama. and more »

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Republicans once united against the ACA are now divided by it - News & Observer (blog)

WASHINGTON (AP) Republican lawmakers have overturned more than a dozen regulations issued under President Barack Obama. Now, theyre looking to do the same to a rule issued Monday that would let consumers band together to sue their banks or credit card companies rather than use a mediator to resolve a dispute.

The effort would be a first for this Republican-led Congress overturning a rule issued during the presidency of Donald Trump.

Of course, the Trump administration isnt particularly fond of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which issued the rule. The administration has called for the agencys restructuring and the presidents budget calls the agency an unaccountable bureaucracy.

Two GOP senators, Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Mike Crapo of Idaho, said Tuesday they intend to seek the repeal of the regulation through the Congressional Review Act, a law that allows Congress to review new federal regulations issued by government agencies and overturn them with a simple majority.

Before Trump came into office, the two-decade-old law had only been used once before to stop a federal regulation from going into effect. But earlier this year, Congress overturned 14 Obama-era rules on a variety of topics, from guns and the environment, to education and retirement plans. By stopping new rules through the Congressional Review Act, Congress also prevents agencies from issuing substantially similar regulations in the future.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau issued the rule to make it easier for consumers to band together when harmed by a financial service provider. The rule bans most types of mandatory arbitration clauses, which require credit card or bank customers to use a mediator when they have a dispute often giving up their right to sue in court.

People who would otherwise have to go it alone or give up, will be able to join with others to pursue justice and some remedy for their harm, the agency said on its web site in explaining the rule.

In announcing that he would seek the rules repeal, Cotton said the agency has gone rogue again.

Crapo, the chairman of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, told reporters he would initiate a similar effort.

Driving dispute resolutions into class actions is probably harmful to consumers rather than helpful to consumers, so I just believe that we need to have a much more effective tool to address concerns that are raised with arbitration, Crapo said.

If Republicans move forward with repealing the rule, Democrats would likely seek to turn the populist issue into an advantage heading into the 2018 elections.

View post:
Republicans say they'll move to halt consumer watchdog rule - Seattle Times

Twenty-three years ago, President Bill Clinton and Senate Democrats canceled two weeks of the August recess to pass a major health care bill. They got nowhere.

Now Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is trying the same thing with the GOP for the August break, and it may lead to the same result.

Story Continued Below

Im hoping for better this time, said Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) on Tuesday afternoon after saying earlier he was very pessimistic the GOP would succeed. In 1994, Democrats kept us in and we didnt accomplish anything.

In fact, McConnell would like to finish health care well before August. Though he pulled a vote in June, Republicans say they are serious about completing their work in the coming days.

There will be a vote to advance the bill next week, McConnell said Tuesday. And even if it fails, he made clear to his members at a party lunch that there will be no more false starts despite an increasingly downbeat feeling in the caucus.

New text of the proposal will be made public Thursday, and a Congressional Budget Office analysis is expected on Monday.

Were in gridlock, said Sen. John McCain of Arizona. He added sarcastically: Now were going to look at a new approach. And were going to get a CBO estimate on Monday. Yay!

Sen. Ron Johnson, a conservative holdout, called it a "political blunder" that McConnell started the health care debate as a partisan, all-Republican effort.

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"Its just not smart politically," the Wisconsin senator said.

McConnell spoke to President Donald Trump over the weekend about health care, a source familiar with the conversation said. The White House is distracted by Donald Trump's Jr.s deepening Russia scandal but Trump "definitely wants [health care] done," the source said.

McConnell's new timetable comes as his party is mired in a tug of war among its ideological factions and clearly lacking the 50 required votes to even advance the bill.

An amendment written by Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Mike Lee ofUtah is fracturing the conference, with the measure taking center stage at the partys first caucus lunch in nearly two weeks on Tuesday. Though the proposal to allow the sale of cheap, deregulated insurance plans is championed by the right, other Republicans say it would undermine their promise to keep Obamacares protections for people with pre-existing conditions.

There will be two drafts of the new bill text and two scores, senators said: One with the amendment, the other without. McConnell and his team have not decided whether the divisive measure will be included in the base bill. That decision will determine whether Cruz, Lee and other reluctant Republicans even vote to open debate on the bill.

McConnell is urging senators to use the bills open amendment process to alter the measure to suit their concerns, according to senators and aides.

"I just can't imagine not voting to proceed to the bill when you've got an open amendment process," said Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee. "If you don't like what ends up happening, you can vote no, can you not?"

But many senators suspect McConnell will introduce a substitute measure at the end of the amendment blitz next week that would overwrite any alterations during the bill's "vote-a-rama." And GOP leaders believe if the debate begins, the vote would pass.

If they start the debate that will mean Im confident that we will get there before its over, said Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn of Texas.

Republicans were told on Tuesday the latest draft is likely to keep some of Obamacares taxes on the wealthy and Medicare to help lower premiums for people with low incomes, provide $45 billion to fight opioid addiction and allow people to pay premiums with pre-tax money. It does not appear there is yet a solution for moderates and people from Medicaid expansion states, many of whom gathered on Tuesday to strategize.

I'm not optimistic that its going to be a bill that I can support. But obviously Ill withhold judgment until I see it. It sounds to me like it does not make a lot of major changes," said Sen. Susan Collins. The moderate senator is concerned that future spending reductions to Medicaid would cripple rural hospitals in her state.

Sen. Rand Paul, one of the GOPs most vocal opponents from the right, said he hasnt heard anything that would change his position, even if the amendment by Cruz and Lee is attached.

I promised to repeal it, the Kentucky lawmaker said of Obamacare. I didnt promise to permanently codify that the federal government will buy peoples insurance, subsidize their insurance and then throw a big pool of money at the insurance companies.

The GOP strategy to pass the bill, he said, is the kitchen sink right now theyre just throwing more money at everything.

Indeed, deal-seeking Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said he was convening a group of senators to write a new bill to replace Obamacare. It's not clear how Graham's plan would align with McConnell's work, though he said he believed he could get the support of some Democrats.

That could be helpful, considering how divided the Republican conference is over the issue.

The Cruz and Lee amendment lacks support, and its future has been complicated by a game of telephone between GOP leaders and the two conservative senators. After much back and forth among McConnell, the two conservative senators and CBO, the amendment was rewritten again on Monday, two sources said.

Republicans have asked CBO to analyze two versions of their bill, according to senators: one with the Lee and Cruz amendment and one without the provision. The dual scores could set up a showdown between the Senates conservative standard-bearers and other Republicans.

It is unclear whether the CBO score for the Cruz and Lee proposal will be ready in time for next weeks vote on starting debate on the bill.

Republican senators and aides were expected to meet with the Senate parliamentarian on Tuesday about what health care reforms the Senate rules allow. But the Cruz and Lee proposal doesnt have 50 Republican votes at the moment to survive, senators said.

They have an amendment that I have no objection to, said one Republican senator, before adding, I dont think they have the votes to keep it.

Cruz and Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) met for a private breakfast on Tuesday. The two started the Senates working group on health care several months ago and disagree on the effectiveness of Cruz and Lees amendment.

Critics say that bifurcating the insurance markets will result in healthy people buying deregulated insurance and sick people buying insurance under Obamacare regulations, creating a large and costly risk pool of people with pre-existing conditions.

Theres been a good deal of discussion about the amendment and potential changes to it, Alexander said. "Were still discussing it.

More moderate GOP senators are hoping the measure can be altered to win support of the conference rather than divide it. Some Republicans want to see the risk pools for healthy and sicker people linked in some way so that it prevents sick people from seeing their premiums spike.

The hope is that the amendment still lowers premiums here but doesnt create this kind of death spiral over there, said Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, who said he has spoken with Cruz about the idea.

Adam Cancryn, Josh Dawsey, Austin Wright and Jake Lahut contributed to this report.

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Reeling Republicans take one last shot at Obamacare - Politico