The GOP Plan to replace Obamacare has been leaked:
Exclusive: Leaked GOP Obamacare replacement shrinks subsidies, Medicaid expansion
The replacement would be paid for by limiting tax breaks on generous health plans people get at work.
By Paul Demko
02/24/17 11:07 AM EST
Updated 02/24/17 03:10 PM ESTA draft House Republican repeal bill would dismantle the Obamacare subsidies and scrap its Medicaid expansion, according to a copy of the proposal obtained by POLITICO.
The legislation would take down the foundation of Obamacare, including the unpopular individual mandate, subsidies based on people’s income, and all of the law’s taxes. It would significantly roll back Medicaid spending and give states money to create high risk pools for some people with pre-existing conditions. Some elements would be effective right away; others not until 2020.
The replacement would be paid for by limiting tax breaks on generous health plans people get at work — an idea that is similar to the Obamacare “Cadillac tax” that Republicans have fought to repeal.
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In place of the Obamacare subsidies, the House bill starting in 2020 would give tax credits — based on age instead of income. For a person under age 30, the credit would be $2,000. That amount would double for beneficiaries over the age of 60, according to the proposal. A related document notes that HHS Secretary Tom Price wants the subsidies to be slightly less generous for most age groups.
The Republican plan would also eliminate Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion in 2020. States could still cover those people if they chose but they’d get a lot less federal money to do so. And instead of the current open-ended federal entitlement, states would get capped payments to states based on the number of Medicaid enrollees.
Obamacare has helped 20 million people.
The GOP replacement would not help that many people.
The MILLIONS helped by Medicaid expansion? Many who had never had ANY INSURANCE before Medicaid expansion? GONE
The GOP replacement would hurt EVERYONE WITH INSURANCE. They are coming after those with EMPLOYER BASED INSURANCE TOO.
They are so rotten. So loathesome.
20 MILLION PEOPLE.
1/6 OF THE AMERICAN ECONOMY.
They do not care who they kill.
We must keep on fighting, and contacting the Reps and Senators. We can’t let them believe for one minute that this is acceptable.
Reminders of the bad old days. Reminders that these are but two stories. Multiply these by MILLIONS. We can do this for our fellow citizens. We can fight for them.
Story One:
I had a catastrophic plan the first year — which was the year I was diagnosed with ovarian cancer that July. Living in Louisiana, I fell into the “Jindal Hole,” where I made too much money for Medicaid but not enough money to qualify for a subsidy. It was a nightmare. Out-of-pocket cap was supposed to be $6,300 after a $4,200 deductible (which was a fortune that I couldn’t afford anyway…), but having a major diagnosis meant that I racked up bills so fast that they couldn’t even process the claims to figure out when the insurance would kick in. Fast forward to October, where I was standing at the reception desk of the oncologist’s office, crying, because I couldn’t pay the $5,000 copay to get the chemotherapy I was scheduled for that day. I was paying almost $500 a month for insurance, had spent borrowed and spent nearly $7,000 in copays and deposits to meet my deductible and and out-of-pocket cap, but none of that mattered. I had to postpone chemotherapy and spent the next several days on the phone trying to get someone to authorize treatment or find some way to come up with thousands of more dollars on the spot.
The next year, I made enough money to get a silver plan, and I was paying $128 a month in premiums, with a $200 deductible, after which everything was totally covered. I would not have survived another year on the catastrophic plan.
Story Two:
When Steve and Leslie Shaeffer’s daughter, Selah, was diagnosed at age 4 with a potentially fatal tumor in her jaw, they figured their health insurance would cover the bulk of her treatment costs.
Instead, almost two years later, the Murrieta, Calif., couple face more than $60,000 in medical bills and fear the loss of their dream home. They struggle to stave off creditors as they try to figure out how Selah can keep seeing the physician they credit with saving her life.
“We’re in big trouble,” Leslie said.
Shortly after Selah’s medical bills hit $20,000, Blue Cross stopped covering them and eventually canceled her coverage retroactively, refusing to pay for treatment, including surgery the insurer had authorized in advance.
The company accused the Shaeffers of failing to disclose in their coverage application an undiagnosed bump on Selah’s chin and physician visits for croup. Had that been disclosed, the company said in a letter, it would not have insured Selah.
Ametia or Rikyrah
If you have time, can one of you put up a post about that mofo, Van Jones. That sell out groveling sob.
Van Jones
https://twitter.com/3ChicsPolitico/status/836765559308025862
Don’t fall for anything Cheeto Bandito #45 say tonight or any other day or night. DON’T.DO.IT
Look at the folks he’s piled into his administration and watch what they do, not what they say.
LYING, RACIST SACK-O-SHIT
https://twitter.com/ladyc10/status/836748765113499650
https://twitter.com/EricWolfson/status/836741294437371905
https://twitter.com/MrErnestOwens/status/836750508270452736
Congratulations @BarackObama @MichelleObama. You deserve this and so much more. May God continue to bless!
https://twitter.com/businessinsider/status/836695673466650624
This weasel right here:
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https://twitter.com/3ChicsPolitico/status/836738962089787393
https://twitter.com/OwliePye/status/833379992134258690
Despicable. Should never be allowed anywhere near children ever again.
https://twitter.com/pannlewis44/status/836727028833452033
I’m not surprised. PBO is an excellent writer. His will be the best selling memoir of a US president ever.
https://twitter.com/ZariaVonMars/status/835839135302713345
RIKI YRAH
https://twitter.com/tornado_junkies/status/836709500346380291
God is good all the time and all the time God is good!
https://twitter.com/3ChicsPolitico/status/836718541508329472
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https://twitter.com/Mediaite/status/836628761479114752
Yeah, this idiot’s marching orders apparently are to crack down on states that have legalized marijuana or medical marijuana by enforcing federal law.
Well, marijuana keeps a lot of folks in the criminal “justice” system who really shouldn’t be there. The criminal “justice” system creates a lot of jobs for right wingers and, of course, private prison companies will benefit as well as long as we keep incarcerating people for who are not criminals.
It’s all bad. The Department of Justice with this idiot out of Alabama as the AG will be decimated.
https://twitter.com/maggieNYT/status/836653919220686848
https://twitter.com/3ChicsPolitico/status/836638564658065408
New Trump claims about deadly Yemen raid appear to be untrue
02/28/17 09:38 AM—UPDATED 02/28/17 10:41 AM
By Steve Benen
Following up on a story we’ve been following, Donald Trump continues to face important questions about the first military raid he ordered as president, which tragically turned deadly. The fact that the Republican president is avoiding responsibility for what happened – and doesn’t appear to be telling the truth about the mission itself – makes the questions all the more serious.
As we’ve discussed, the plan was to acquire intelligence and equipment at an al Qaeda camp in Yemen, but the mission quickly went sideways: Chief Petty Officer William “Ryan” Owens, a member of SEAL Team 6, was killed; several other Americans were injured; and by the end of the operation, multiple civilians, including children, were dead.
It’s been described as a mission in which “almost everything went wrong,” a dynamic made more complicated by U.S. military officials suggesting to Reuters that Trump approved the mission “without sufficient intelligence, ground support or adequate backup preparations.”
Owens’ father, Bill, has refused to meet Trump and wants an investigation into the mission. The president was asked for his reaction in a Fox News interview that aired this morning, and Trump responded by effectively saying the mission he ordered wasn’t his idea.
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There are a couple of key problems with Trump’s assessment. First, it’s genuinely bizarre to hear a Commander in Chief, reflecting on a mission he personally authorized, try to avoid responsibility for the mission he green-lit. I realize Trump’s new at this, but as a rule, presidents at least try to appear accountable.
Second and more important is the fact that Trump’s version of events is at odds with the available evidence. As Rachel noted on the show last week, Team Trump has maintained in recent weeks that it was the Obama administration that approved the mission at a meeting of the National Security Council on Jan. 6, even if it was carried out soon after Trump took office.
That was directly contradicted by Colin Kahl, a deputy assistant to President Obama and National Security Advisor to Vice President Biden, who participated in that National Security Council meeting and explained that no such decision was made. On the contrary, officials expected the new administration to begin its own deliberative process to evaluate whether the operation should go ahead.
Trump instead approved the mission over dinner at the White House residence, alongside political adviser Steve Bannon. While the deadly raid was underway, the president did not go to the Situation Room and did not monitor the developments in real time.
Why Trump is so preoccupied with ‘central casting’
02/28/17 12:11 PM
By Steve Benen
Donald Trump spoke to members of the National Governors Association yesterday at the White House, and the president took a moment to thank his vice president, Mike Pence. Trump told his audience:
The phrasing stood out in part because of the frequency with which we’ve heard that language from Trump. It was on Inauguration Day, for example, that the new president turned to James Mattis, “This is central casting. If I was doing a movie, I pick you, general.”
A month earlier, when Trump considered Mitt Romney to lead the State Department, Trump’s transition officials said the president believed Romney “looks the part of a top diplomat right out of ‘central casting.’” A Washington Post reporter told MSNBC in December that “central casting” is “actually a phrase he uses quite a bit behind the scenes.”
Trump’s EPA chief already at the center of multiple controversies
02/28/17 08:00 AM
By Steve Benen
Donald Trump’s hostility towards the Environmental Protection Agency isn’t exactly subtle. The president’s new budget proposes slashing the EPA’s funding; the White House is moving forward with plans to dramatically scale back the agency’s work; and Trump’s chosen director for the EPA makes no secret of his overt hostility towards the agency’s purpose.
And it’s against this backdrop that the president’s EPA administrator has found himself at the center of several ongoing controversies. The Associated Press reported late yesterday:
Trump also accused Obama of being behind the mass protests at Republican town halls last week.
President Donald Trump: “I think that he is behind it. I also think it’s politics. That’s the way it is. And look, I have a very different agenda—”
Brian Kilmeade: “But Bush was never—but Bush wasn’t going after Clinton, and Clinton wasn’t going after Bush.”
President Donald Trump: “Well, you never know what’s exactly happening behind the scenes. You know, you’re probably right, or possibly right, but you never know. No, I think that President Obama is behind it, because his people are certainly behind it. And some of the leaks possibly come from that group. You know, some of the leaks, which are really very serious leaks, because they’re very bad in terms of national security. But I also understand that’s politics. And in terms of him being behind things, that’s politics. And it will probably continue.”
That’s President Trump, accusing former President Obama of being behind the leaks coming out of the White House. Yet White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer seems to believe his own staff are behind the leaks—and he recently forced them to submit to a random phone check, according to Politico.
https://www.democracynow.org/2017/2/28/headlines/trump_accuses_obama_of_being_behind_white_house_leaks_protests
Does this idiot even hears himself when he starts talking?
https://twitter.com/StCyrlyMe2/status/836629193421012992
Trifling trash, the lot of them.
This is who they are.
https://twitter.com/RawStory/status/836405577018376192
There’s so much POWER in being BLACK, so much so, that white folks have to hate what they are NOT.
Spot on!
https://twitter.com/CNN/status/836625224535846912
Judge banned them from the county for life…
https://twitter.com/MaggieJordanACN/status/836614230820413441
When you call your Senators and representatives about the ACA, ask if their replacement will guarantee affordable healthcare to every American citizen.
By healthcare you mean the full range of services, preventative, diagnostic, treatment, pharmaceutical, etc…
Betsy DeVos May Need a Civil Rights Reality Check
Former civil rights chief of the Education Department on why the agency is indispensable
by Catherine E. Lhamon
February 27, 2017 9:00 PM
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I led the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, so I can offer Secretary DeVos a dose of reality about just how far we have to go as a nation to fulfill the law.
In Lee County Schools system in rural Alabama, for example, which had years earlier convinced a federal court that it had eliminated the effects of segregation, one of the four public high schools served more than 90 percent black students – even though the district student population was only 23 percent black.
The majority-black high school had never offered an Advanced Placement course to its students until three years before the civil rights office investigated, while the other three high schools offered a broad range of A.P. courses. Investigators from the Office of Civil Rights asked the principal of the overwhelmingly black school why he didn’t offer high-rigor courses. He said his students needed remedial education, not A.P. It took federal intervention in 2013, almost 60 years after Brown v. Board of Education, to ensure that all students in Lee County – not just the white students and the few black students attending majority-white schools – had access to an education that would prepare them to fulfill their dreams.
In a district in the Southwest, teachers required a boy with autism to stand in front of his class and listen to his peers tell him what they didn’t like about him, as a way to discipline the child. When his mother complained, administrators defended the decision, saying the school needed to be able to innovate. It took federal intervention to ensure that this child, and his peers, did not suffer further discrimination at school.
……………………….
At Shaw University in North Carolina, a student with cerebral palsy arrived on campus for orientation only to be told his admission had been rescinded because of his disability. University officials told the civil rights office that they routinely denied admission to students with disabilities if the school couldn’t readily accommodate the student. It took federal intervention to ensure that the Americans with Disabilities Act, which had become law some 25 years earlier, would apply for students wanting to attend Shaw.
https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/836606336909594625
https://twitter.com/NBCNews/status/836564533934182400
Yes, we do.
And we also need answers on why Paul Ryan does not want all American citizens to have health care.
Exploiting their pain
https://twitter.com/AntonioArellano/status/836599447526191104
But he and his third wife will never invite the families of Michael Brown, Sandra Bland, Freddie Gray, etc…
Despicable.
https://twitter.com/3ChicsPolitico/status/836597566192115712
THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 2/27/17
New Commerce Secretary at nexus of lucrative Trump Russian deal
With a line that runs through newly confirmed Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, Rachel Maddow connects the dots between a billionaire Russian oligarch and a Donald Trump deal worth tens of millions of dollars.
Did anyone watch this last night on PBS?
I DVR’d it for later. Saw the interview with Mr. Gates, looks very interesting.
I am LIVID about what the GOP is trying to do to the Affordable Care Act.
The PBS Newshour had a great segment last night on the ACA that was focused on how hospitals have benefited under the ACA. Many hospitals have survived that otherwise would be so deeply in debt they would be closing their doors and leaving communities without sufficient healthcare resources.
So Trump calls for a 54 billion dollar increase in defense spending. And at the same time the GOP wants to take healthcare away from 20 million people while hawking the lie that the ACA will be replaced with something better.
Here’s the segment:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/hospitals-worry-aca-repeal-harm-financial-health/
Good morning, rikyrah.
Good Morning, Everyone 😐😐😐
Good Morning Rikyarh & Everyone.