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Former Secretary of Health and Human Services Tom Price, now safely out of power, said Tuesday that Republicans’ repeal of Obamacare’s individual mandate will “harm” the individual insurance marketplace.
“That may help, but it still is nibbling at the side,” Price told this year’s World Heath Care Congress in Washington, D.C., according to audio of Price’s speech shared with TPM by event organizers. The Washington Times first reported Price’s remarks.
“And there are many, and I’m one of them, who believes that that actually will harm the pool in the exchange market, because you’ll likely have individuals that are younger and healthier not participating in that market, and consequently, that drives up the cost for other folks within that market,” he added.
via Talking Points Memo.
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The bill’s repeal of the Obamacare individual mandate will result in 13 million Americans losing coverage, and an average $1,500 hike in health insurance premiums for older adults aged 50-64.
A panel of federal appeals judges aggressively questioned whether Obamacare can survive during Tuesday afternoon oral arguments in a case that could upend the 2010 health care law.
Two Republican appointees on the three-judge panel frequently interrupted attorneys to question whether the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate is unconstitutional and if not whether the entire law could stand without it. The ACA’s future appeared murky after two hours of oral arguments at the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, but it’s not clear if the judges were ready to uphold a federal judge’s earlier decision invalidating the law.
via Politico.
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What ACA Repeal Means for Seniors.
Here are just a few of the real-life benefits millions of seniors in Medicare would lose immediately if Republicans have their way and repeal the Affordable Care Act:
- No out-of-pocket costs for preventive services like colorectal and mammogram screenings and annual wellness visits
- 50% discount for brand name drugs purchased while in the Part D donut hole, leading to the closure of the donut hole entirely
How the Affordable Care Act Helps Seniors.
The ACA provides new ways to help hospitals, doctors and other health care providers coordinate care for beneficiaries so that health care quality is improved and unnecessary spending reduced.
- Lower-Cost Prescription Drugs.
- Preventive Services and Annual Wellness Visit.
- Lower Medicare Part B Premiums.
- Medicare Fraud, Waste and Abuse.
Hillary Clinton’s plan for health care can best be summed up as Obamacare Plus: If elected, she would push to preserve the Affordable Care Act as-is, but she would add financial protections for struggling consumers.
via The Atlantic.
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Fifty-five percent of Americans now support the Affordable Care Act (ACA), a major turnaround from five months ago when 42% approved and 53% disapproved. This is the first time a majority of Americans have approved of the healthcare law, also known as Obamacare, since Gallup first asked about it in this format in November 2012.
via GALLUP.
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via Twitter.
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How the Affordable Care Act Helps Seniors.
- The Affordable Care Act (ACA), signed into law on March 23, 2010, aims to provide greater access to health care coverage, improve the quality of services delivered and reduce the rate of increase in health spending.
Flashback: How the House Affordable Care Act (ACA) Repeal Legislation Affects Seniors.
- The Affordable Care Act is a highly complex piece of legislation that includes benefit increases for seniors, makes improvements that help to contain health care costs, and extends the solvency of the Medicare Part A trust fund. To follow is a summary of how the House ACA repeal legislation would undermine the enhanced health security provided to seniors and people with disabilities by the health care reform law.
NEWS RELEASE
The Senate leadership has taken the first dangerous step toward repealing the Affordable Care Act. Repeal of the ACA will pull the plug on the 30 million Americans who now depend on it for health care — not to mention the 57 million seniors and disabled who benefit every day from the ACA’s improvements to Medicare.
Read more here.
The Senate leadership has taken the first dangerous step toward repealing the Affordable Care Act. Repeal of the ACA will pull the plug on the 30 million Americans who now depend on it for health care — not to mention the 57 million seniors and disabled who benefit every day from the ACA’s improvements to Medicare.
More here.
Republicans are on the verge of achieving one of biggest policy goals of the past decade: unraveling the Affordable Care Act.
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, as being considered in the US Senate, repeals Obamacare’s individual mandate. That change, according to the Congressional Budget Office, would cut $338 billion over 10 years from Medicaid and insurance subsidies and lead to 13 million fewer people having health coverage. That will, according to the best evidence we have, lead to an increase in preventable deaths on the order of 15,600 people per year.
It will do more than that, though. It will completely destabilize the market for individual health insurance.
via VOX.
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Outrage Crucial as Trump/GOP Tax Scam Gets Dangerously Close to Passing the Senate.
- In the face of overwhelming evidence that the Republican plan is a shamelessly giveaway to the wealthy and big corporations, the public must continue to apply as much pressure as possible on elected representatives.
- Now is the time to seize on the opportunity to stop the Trump/GOP tax juggernaut before it wreaks permanent havoc on the lives of the poor, the sick, the working class, and the elderly.
The Trump administration is refusing to defend key parts of the Affordable Care Act, essentially arguing that federal courts should find the health law’s protection for people with preexisting conditions unconstitutional.
The federal lawsuit hinges on the ACA’s individual mandate, or the requirement to get health coverage or pay a penalty. The mandate has long been a sticking point for conservatives, who argue that the government should not be telling individuals what coverage they must have.
But that mandate was crucial to persuading insurers to offer plans under the ACA. It helped expand their risk pools while the law forced them to guarantee coverage to any customer. Insurers were not allowed to raise costs for people with preexisting conditions. The administration’s brief, filed Thursday in federal district court in Fort Worth, Texas, takes aim at those links.
via Kaiser Health News.
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Chiquita Brooks-LaSure becomes the first black woman to lead the agency that oversees #Medicare and #Medicaid. She is a major improvement over President Trump’s CMS administrator, who undermined Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/25/us/politics/chiquita-brooks-lasure-medicare-medicaid.html @CMSGov