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The new Senate bill's major provisions
#31
McCain makes a dramatic return to the Senate, gets a well deserved hero's welcome and then.. enables a truly abominable healthcare change which was prepared in the dark of the night. Amazing stuff..

Quote:Senator John McCain made a dramatic return to the Capitol a week after his brain cancer diagnosis, casting a critical health-care vote and challenging colleagues of both parties to curb hyper-partisanship in Washington. "Stop listening to the bombastic loudmouths on the radio, television and internet," the Arizona Republican said in a Senate floor speech. "To hell with them. They don’t want anything done for the public good.

"I hope we can again rely on humility, on our need to cooperate, on our dependence on each other to learn how to trust each other again and by so doing better serve the people who elected us," he said. The senator, who announced his diagnosis last week, provided one of the final two votes needed so Vice President Mike Pence could break a 50-50 tie to begin Senate debate on legislation to repeal and possibly replace Obamacare.
McCain Says ‘To Hell With’ Media Bombast in Plea to End Division - Bloomberg
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#32
It's hard to keep up when so much is happening behind closed doors without proper discussion, let alone an open one. Some of the new provisions, from Business Insider

The Senate just came out with a new version of its repeal and replace plan — here's what you need to know The Senate just introduced a new version of their plan to repeal and replace Obamacare. The newest version of the Better Care Reconciliation Act — which Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon nicknamed "Trumpcare 3.0" — reinserts an amendment that experts argue could have a big impact on people with pre-existing medical conditions.

This version of the bill, which went up for a procedural vote on Tuesday, needed 60 votes to pass, which it wasn't able to get. In the end, nine Republican senators voted against the bill. Procedural votes are used to gauge whether the legislation complies with the budget act it's trying to pass under. But it gives a glimpse of what the vote would look like if the bill came up for the real vote. The bill still provides that more funds will be set aside for the opioid crisis, and people will be able to pay for premiums using a health savings account. It also takes deep cuts to Medicaid

Here's the quick summary of what's all in the new bill
  • The Consumer Freedom Amendment, proposed by Senator Ted Cruz. 
  • The Portman Amendment, which provides $100 billion in funding to stabilize states.
  • It also makes some changes to a section that would have made out-of-pocket maximums technically higher than what's allowed by the law.  
The Portman Amendment 
The bill includes an amendment from Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio, which sets up $100 billion in new funding to stabilize states. It does this by increasing funding from $19.2 billion a year to $30.2 billion. Portman has expressed concerns about the BCRA before for not providing enough funding for Medicaid tackling the opioid crisis. 

The Consumer Freedom Amendment
Unlike the one scored last week by the Congressional Budget Office, this bill includes an amendment from Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas that critics said could make plans with adequate coverage unaffordable to those who have certain medical conditionsThe amendment would have allowed plans to exist that don't comply with two regulations set up under the Affordable Care Act, the law better known as Obamacare: community rating and essential health benefits. The latter could have had a big impact on people with preexisting conditions.

Under the Cruz amendment, titled the "Consumer Freedom Amendment," because some health plans wouldn't have to necessarily adhere to the community rating and essential health benefits. Those that do would receive$70 billion in funding to offset the higher premiums that would result relative to the plans that don't cover the regulations. Whether that funding would be enough to make the plans affordable remains to be seen. While the CBO analysis might have shed some light, the amendment was pulled from the draft bill

On Wednesday, the Department of Health and Human Services  released a report  on the Consumer Freedom Amendment, taking a look at what it would do in the context of the ACA — not the BCRA bill. The report came to the conclusion that Cruz's amendment would lower premiums in both the traditional ACA plans and the less regulated ones.

That goes against what experts say about the amendment. They argue that it is likely premiums under both types of plans would likely rise if the amendment was put in place. The insurance industry's lobbying group said the amendment would lead to "widespread adverse selection and unstable health insurance markets."

SEE ALSO: CBO: Under the latest Senate healthcare bill, deductibles could be more than some people earn
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#33
Here is Krugman:

The Great Health Care Coverup

Like many people, I have a sick sense of anger over what just happened in the Senate, which just voted to proceed on a health care bill without any information on what will be in the bill. There’s still hope that in the next few hours, moderates who just caved in will balk at the horrible things they’re being asked to vote for. And I do mean hours: there will be no time for reflection or serious debate.

But nobody should have any confidence that they will. And I think we can almost take it for granted that John McCain will first vote for something terrible, then give a grandstanding speech about making our politics better. The important thing to realize is WHY the Senate is doing this — rushing to pass legislation that will have a vast impact on American lives, the economy, and more without a single hearing, without time for a proper analysis of the bill, and with crucial votes taken on behalf of legislation yet to be determined. It’s not some arbitrary failure of procedure: it’s a coverup.

The fact is that Republicans have no good ideas on health; everything they want to do will make huge numbers of people worse off, to the benefit of a wealthy few. And they know this. They know that the campaign against Obamacare was based on lies from the beginning, that all their complaints about things like high deductibles were hypocritical. They know that what they’re about to do is terrible. But they’re trying to do it anyway — and the only way they have a chance is by breaking every rule of good governance, by making the process so rushed and secretive that nobody has a chance to say “Wait a minute– what are we doing?”

At a deep level McConnell’s determination to pass a health bill by breaking all norms is quite similar to Trump’s determination to shut down an investigation into his own corruption and possible collusion. Both men are trying to cover up what they know would outrage voters if they knew about it, and they don’t care what rules get broken along the way. And the Senators who caved on health today are pretty much the same people who are enabling Trump’s abuse of his office. The moral rot in the Republican party runs wide as well as deep. All we need to save America is a few good men — but apparently all we have are two decent women. And that’s not enough.
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#34
It's just ironic. Krugman predicted it, we already noticed it, what happened to John McCain..

Quote:Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) returned to Washington DC mid-recovery from brain surgery with an impassioned speech about bipartisanship and a striking declaration that he would not support the Senate’s health care bill.

“I will not vote for this bill as it is today,” McCain said on the Senate floor, after voting to proceed to debate “to allow debate to continue and amendments to be offered.” He castigated the bill’s secretive process and called for the Senate to “return to regular order” in the Senate. Six hours later, McCain voted for the Senate’s health care bill.

Technically he voted on a senate procedural matter — on whether or not the bill satisfied budget rules. But it was not lost on any senator on the floor Tuesday night that their vote was an yay or nay on the Better Care Reconciliation Act itself.

The legislation, which Republicans labored over for months using a secretive and confusing process, would have resulted in 22 million fewer Americans having health insurance. McCain was among the loudest voices against Senate Leadership’s closed process on health care. He told Vox he would have run the show “dramatically different.”
McCain said he wouldn’t vote for the Senate health care bill. 6 hours later he did. - Vox
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#35
And McCain wasn't the only one..

Quote:The Senate just voted 51–50 on the motion to proceed — with Vice President Mike Pence breaking the tie — on legislation to be finalized later that will repeal parts of or all of the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare. This was dramatic news, not only because Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) entered the Senate chamber fresh off a flight from his home where he is undergoing cancer treatment, but also because several Republican senators voted yes despite their previous statements indicating they would not vote to open debate with the legislation in such mysterious chaos.

The most likely path forward on this legislative efforts, according to Senate Republicans, is “skinny repeal,” which means lawmakers would vote to hobble Obamacare by repealing the individual and employer mandates as well as the medical device tax. Doing this, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget’s analysis of prior Congressional Budget Office scores, would hike premiums 20 percent and increase the number of people without insurance by 15 million. It would also save hundreds of billions as millions of Americans stop receiving subsidies and Medicaid benefits.
5 GOP senators who promised to be principled on health care and then caved when it was time to vote

And as you see, the damage from that skinny repeal is huge..
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#36
Where do the Republicans go from here? Well, repealing only parts of Obamacare ("Skinny Repeal"). But even that is devastating:

Quote:They are then expected to turn to a new plan: repealing only the most unpopular parts of the Affordable Care Act, including the individual mandate and perhaps the employer mandate and some taxes on the health care industry, while leaving large swaths of Obamacare in place. Few bills pronounced dead in the Republican crusade to overhaul the health care law have stayed that way. Still, the only viable path left standing amid the rubble, health care lobbyists and Senate aides believe, would be the much narrower “skinny repeal” bill.

Senate Republicans are rushing toward a vote on the skinny repeal plan with unprecedented speed, with just a few days to draft, debate, and vote to pass a brand new bill. If it were to pass, it would be a remarkable capitulation by Senate Republicans: an acknowledgement that even with a Senate majority and a Republican in the White House, they are capable only of repealing a few choice parts of the law they have vilified for seven years, while much of it appears likelier and likelier to remain in effect.

But for the millions of Americans whose health insurance has been at risk during the debate, the consequences from this slapdash bill could be severe. The Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion that insured upwards of 15 million people and became a flashpoint in the Senate debate would remain in place. But even a skinny Obamacare repeal could destabilize the individual insurance market, putting health coverage for millions of Americans at risk.

Repealing the individual mandate while leaving the rest of the law in place risks sending Obamacare’s insurance markets into a death spiral.
Health insurers have long said that a compulsion for people to buy insurance is necessary in order for the law to work, after it required that insurers cover everyone and charge everyone the same premiums no matter their health. Republicans had even conceded as much, because their own bills sought to create some kind of replacement for the mandate.

Without such a mandate, healthy people could forgo coverage while sick people would continue to buy insurance. That would drive up costs for insurers, who in turn would increase premiums. As more and more people dropped out, leaving only the sickest people who need insurance most, the market could tailspin into a death spiralThe Congressional Budget Office estimated that repealing the mandate by itself would lead to 15 million fewer Americans having health insurance 10 years from now.
Senate Republicans’ incredible shrinking Obamacare repeal dreams - Vox

So, in order to safe face and pass anything that remotely resembles 'repeal' they're throwing 15 million of the most vulnerable people under the bus..

And then they blame the CBO..
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#37
Not only do they blame the CBO (and of course the Democrats), but they argue some of their own deserve a beating..


Quote:During an MSNBC interview on Wednesday, Rep. Buddy Carter (R-GA) was asked about President Trump’s Twitter attack on Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK).

Murkowski and Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) were the only two Republican senators to vote against a motion to proceed on health care discussion on Tuesday. (The motion passed 51–50, with Vice President Mike Pence casting the tie-breaking vote.)

Carter characterized Trump’s attack as “perfectly fair,” before suggesting that Murkowski and Collins deserve a beating. “Lemme tell you, somebody needs to go over there to that Senate and snatch a knot in their ass,” he continued. “I’m telling you, it has gotten to the point where — how can you say I voted for this last year but I’m not gonna vote for it this year. This is extremely frustrating for those of us who have put so much into this effort.”

While it’s unclear exactly what kind of violence Carter was alluding to, it certainly doesn’t sound pleasant. And his comment represents the second time in a week that a male House Republican has suggested they’d like to commit acts of violence against female Republican senators who oppose Trumpcare.

Last Friday, Rep. Blake Farenthold (R-TX) told a Corpus Christi radio station that he finds it “absolutely repugnant” that “the Senate does not have the courage to do some of the things that every Republican in the Senate promised to do,” singling out female senators in particularHe went on to suggest that if they were men, he’d ask them to settle things with a gunfight.

“Some of the people that are opposed to this [i.e., repealing Obamacare] — there are some female senators from the northeast,” Farenthold said. “If it was a guy from south Texas I might ask them to step outside and settle this Aaron Burr-style.”
Republican congressman says Senate opponents of Trumpcare should be beaten

So if you don't go along with kicking millions of people out of healthcare coverage, all concocted in the deep of the night, you deserve some kind of physical retribution?!
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#38
Well, we've been critical of McCain, but he finally did the honorable thing and voted down the skinny repeal, which would have put the exchanges into a dead spiral and lead to premium increases of 20% per year. 

The whole thing is a sham though. Take this from an earlier version (repeal and replace), taking Medicaid down among other things:

Quote:Senate leaders had also set their sights even bigger than Obamacare: Their most ambitious proposal would have not only repealed and replaced much of the health care law but also fundamentally overhauled Medicaid. The spending cuts — $772 billion over 10 years, versus current law — and a projected 15 million fewer enrollees also gave a critical mass of senators pause. On top of the raw numbers,

Senate leaders were pushing to overhaul a 50-year-old program that covers more than 70 million Americans without holding a single hearing. Collins was aghast. “To do that without holding a single hearing on what the implications would be for some of our most vulnerable citizens, for our rural hospitals, and our nursing homes, is not an approach that I can endorse,” she said in recent days.
Why Senate Republicans couldn’t repeal Obamacare - Vox

Who said "I'm not here to hurt people?"
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