Another Twitter explanation from Andy Slavitt:
Andy Slavitt Verified account @ASlavitt 6h6 hours ago
1. Having a lot of conversations today with people on all sides of the Senate health bill jockeying.
Some tweets coming up.
2. I need one more hour because things are evolving quickly. Follow if interested.
3. Let me start with this: the Senate is now trying to sell a bill with very unpopular features but has quite a strategy to do it.
4. The Senate health bill takes away the singular most important protection of the ACA– pre-existing condition protections.
5. Senate bill also eliminates Med expansion, caps it, raises the cost of coverage & millions will lose it. It’s unpopular & getting worse.
6. And the Senate, embarrassingly, exempts themselves so they alone can get essential benefits & pre-ex protections.
7. So, all in all, they have a package of policies that are far from having support from 50 Senators. But they have a plan to get it done..
10. The first part of the strategy is to not focus on the bill but to get past a necessary procedural vote, a Motion to Proceed. Tues/Wed.
11. So the first part of the sales pitch is: if you don’t like it, amend it by voting for the MTP. It’s a clear trap. But an easier sale.
12. The second part of the sales pitch is to win the Sens worried about Medicaid cuts by pitching their governors. All are in RI right now.
13. Pence, Price and Adm. Verma are saying yes you will get less $ (poor people need to go on a diet), but you will get more flexibility.😉
14. Pitch is CMS waivers will make up 4 $800 billion in cuts. I used to run CMS. I can tell you: waivers must be budget neutral. Impossible.
15. The next strategy is to buy every Senator possible. So a bunch of money went to Alaska already. But…
16. The fix was supposed to even take care of a Tribal populations. But didn’t. 👇 Shameful & ineffective.
17. If you don’t believe me that this Alaska buy off doesn’t jibe, listen to someone who knows.
Tierney SneedVerified account @Tierney_Megan
Well Alaska’s top Medicaid official still hates BCRA (tho her office pointed me to the state’s Insurance Division on the Klondike Kickback)
18. Next strategy is 2 use Cruz amendment to be all things to all people when it’s actually horrible for everyone.
19. Some Senators are being told it’s a single risk pool cuz it’s what they want. But it’s a lie. (You’re thinking Ted Cruz? Lie? IKR?)
20. No one understands it or can explain it. But actuaries came out & criticized it today.
21. Somewhat amusingly, others are being told Cruz will be two risk pools because they want it to be that.
22. Because Cruz amendment is a disaster, it provides $ to fix the disaster it creates (huh?). Only not enough.
23. I’ve been spending the day trying to de-code the next part of the strategy. Even worse process moves. 👇
24. We already have a process with no hearings, no committee process, no aim at bi-partisanship. And now it’s going to get worse…
25. HHS will have ASPE, their propoganda arm of late, evaluate the Cruz Amendment instead of the CBO. Yes, they can just decide to do that.
26. In fact, the CBO report coming next week may not represent anything like what could be voted on.
28. Bottom line time. Bad bill. Lots of micro-strategies to get votes, but none to fix the bill.
Tom Price admits that the new Trumpcare is only repeal, no replace
Source: Think Progress
During his presidential campaign, Donald Trump promised, over and over again, that he would replace Obamacare with “something terrific,” that would “take care of everybody” and be “a lot less expensive” for consumers and the government.
But despite claims by Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) that his latest version of Trumpcare would provide “stability” while “improving affordability,” Secretary of Health and Human Services Tom Price made a major admission about the bill Sunday: that the legislation to repeal and replace Obamacare would simply permit insurers return to the ways they used to operate.
On ABC’s This Week, the longtime Obamacare critic was pressed by Jon Karl about a provision in the bill pushed by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), which would allow insurance companies to offer sub-standard plans. Karl noted that not only do more than 10 medical groups and 32 cancer organizations oppose the Trumpcare bill, “a rare joint statement by the biggest insurance companies in the country called the Cruz amendment ‘unworkable in any form’ ‘it would lead to, ‘widespread terminations of coverage.”
ICYMI:
Karma and her cousin Irony… they have come.
The Turtle thought that he could cram down the Legislative Evil known as Trumpcare without a full CBO score , especially on the Cruz Amendment.
Then, Country Last up and goes to have surgery. There can’t be a vote without him, and the time it takes for him to recuperate, is time for the CBO to score the Cruz Amendment.😒😒
Please continue to CALL CALL CALL.
Give these Senators nowhere to run. Tell them that stripping away healthcare from MILLIONS so that millionaires and billionaires can get a tax cut is a NO GO.
2. Thirty-two different cancer groups.@CancerAdvocacy CEO: “A direct threat to America’s 16 million cancer patients.” pic.twitter.com/KlBCMl31GJ
— Dan Diamond (@ddiamond) July 13, 2017
Who benefits from a delayed vote on Republican health care plan?
07/17/17 11:30 AM
By Steve Benen
This was supposed to be the week the fight over the Republican health care overhaul reached its endpoint. One way or the other, the Senate GOP leadership planned to bring their regressive plan to the floor, and it’d either pass and get rubber-stamp approval from the Republican-led House, or it’d fail.
At least, that was the plan. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) had surgery for a blood clot the other day, and while the procedure reportedly went well, he’ll be home in Arizona this week, recovering. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), pushing a bill that was already facing tough odds, said McCain’s absence would delay the vote for at least a week.
In theory, this could help GOP leaders, giving them more time to twist arms and buy off on-the-fence members with special goodies and giveaways. (I’ve heard the phrase “Christmas in July” used more than once from Capitol Hill contacts in recent days.) But in practice, the more the Republican health care is exposed to sunlight, the worse it appears.
McConnell is well aware of this, which is precisely why he’s been in such a rush to pass it. More time means more scrutiny, and more scrutiny means more exposure of the bill’s many flaws.
So, where does that leave the state of the debate? For Republican officials, in a less-than-ideal place. The Wall Street Journal had this report over the weekend, for example, on major insurers balking – in rather blunt terms – at the revised details of the current GOP blueprint.
“Simply unworkable in any form” isn’t an especially subtle phrase.
The insurers’ statement follows opposition to the Republican legislation from practically every major stakeholder in the health care industry, including organizations representing doctors, nurses, hospitals, patients, and seniors. It’s difficult to think of any recent policy measure that’s united every possible faction of the industry, including insurers, but the GOP bill has managed to pull it off.
Thanks Rikyrah. Good round up of horror stories on this horrible, SCARY bill.
New post:
The Trump team’s lies about health bill have reached new heights of cruelty and disingenuousness: https://t.co/Qq0ndbJffe
— Greg Sargent (@ThePlumLineGS) July 17, 2017
HHS’s Tom Price wants to roll back the clock on health care
07/17/17 10:30 AM
By Steve Benen
The latest iteration of the Senate Republicans’ health care plan includes a provision from Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), which would do systemic harm to Americans with pre-existing conditions. ABC News’ Jonathan Karl brought up the subject yesterday with HHS Secretary Tom Price, and the Republican’s response was probably more candid than he intended.
Well, yes, I suppose that’s true, but it’s not much of a selling point. Price, a former far-right congressman before joining the Trump administration, is effectively admitting that he and other Republicans hope to turn back the clock to before the Affordable Care Act took effect.
For Price, the solution is apparently easy: private insurers can simply “dust off” their old policies, back when Americans with pre-existing conditions were screwed.
To a very real extent, the Secretary of Health and Human Services is making the same argument as health-care advocates who oppose the GOP legislation. Patient advocates have insisted that the Republican plan in general, and the Cruz amendment in specific, would return the country to the bad ol’ days.
To which Price effectively suggested to a national television audience yesterday, “Yep, that’s the plan.”
It’s not just the Russia scandal: Pence lies about health care, too
07/17/17 08:00 AM—UPDATED 07/17/17 10:11 AM
By Steve Benen
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) could barely contain his frustration over the weekend. “[T]here is real evil in the epidemic rate of lying that is going on right now,” the Connecticut senator wrote, pointing to the latest comments from Vice President Mike Pence. “This is not normal.”
We’ve unfortunately reached a point in contemporary politics where a quote like that, in isolation, needs some clarification – because Mike Pence says untrue things about a great many things.
The far-right vice president, for example, has been caught making all kinds of demonstrably false claims about Donald Trump and the Russia scandal, but the latest controversy surrounds Pence’s mendacious rhetoric on health care, starting with a speech to the National Governors Association. The Washington Post reported that Pence singled out Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R), arguing that Medicaid expansion through the Affordable Care Act in the Buckeye State has caused widespread problems.
Kasich’s office explained that the vice president’s claims are “not accurate,” and are “the opposite of what actually happened.” The governor’s press secretary added, “That’s what we call #fakenews.”
And DRs/RNs make the most impact when they call Senators. https://t.co/KJYUN4E71R can help. Call Now@SenRobPortman@BillCassidy pic.twitter.com/lF67WX9vzR
— HOUSE CALLS CAMPAIGN (@HouseCallsAHCA) July 17, 2017
Please, America, don’t let the US go the way of #Missouri. 😦 https://t.co/TNCEz2TCyX
— Arapaho415 (@arapaho415) July 17, 2017
Thousands of Missourians are about to be cut from prescription drug program https://t.co/uccZnUmOC3 <– Death sentence for MO poor + elderly
— Sarah Kendzior (@sarahkendzior) July 17, 2017
Someone asked me if Republicans are wearing people out on Trumpcare.
I really don’t think so…#littlelobbyists pic.twitter.com/oGQW6Rusr9
— Andy Slavitt (@ASlavitt) July 17, 2017
I won’t stop fighting. When your child’s life is at stake, no matter how tired you are, you DO NOT STOP https://t.co/gs4br7633B
— Natalie Weaver (@Nataliew1020) July 17, 2017
Keep fighting against #BCRA If it doesn’t impact you now, it will impact you or someone you love later! pic.twitter.com/ytWfHdzMmb
— Natalie Weaver (@Nataliew1020) July 13, 2017
Senate leaders arrested us rather than hear moral critique of healthcare repeal. We’re going back 7/18. Join us. https://t.co/h0AdTcM3h9
— Rev. Dr. Barber (@RevDrBarber) July 16, 2017
We’ve grown accustomed to Mike Pence lying about the Russia scandal, but he lies a lot about health care, too https://t.co/UxlSQwcwDU
— Steve Benen (@stevebenen) July 17, 2017
The term “Legislative Evil” is fitting. 👍
Cuts to Medicaid don’t just harm children on Medicaid. They harm care for all children with complex medical needs. https://t.co/QeYkMNBpll
— LOLGOP (@LOLGOP) July 17, 2017
Plans that were sold as health insurance, but didn’t cover doctors visits or hospital care. https://t.co/185Nww8zej pic.twitter.com/KkDMaw3NLF
— Margot Sanger-Katz (@sangerkatz) July 16, 2017