To reference David Anderson (previously Richard Mayhew when he needed a pseudonym as he worked in the HC industry) on Balloon-Juice:
In simple terms, a carrier can’t deny a hemophiliac coverage but they can charge an actuarial fair premium of $90,000 per year. A carrier can’t deny a young woman who either is or intends to become pregnant. They just don’t have to cover the prenatal or labor and delivery costs.
It is effectively a slightly modified option 3 of Cassidy-Collins where states can return to the 2009 status quo if they so actively elect to do so. If we combine a single state choosing this route and sell across state lines, it would lead the entire country’s individual market back to 2009...
From what I can tell: The Republicans in Congress are basically going to kill any coverage in health care, and they're going to try and shift the blame onto the states to get away with it.
The way David Anderson describes it, the Replacement-to-the-Replacement Bill (AHCA 2.0) is worse than the original AHCA.
Why are the Republicans even bothering?
Because somewhere in that shared reptilian brain of the party is the evil desire to wreck ANYTHING with Obama's name on it, and they want to prove they can actually do this without the party falling apart like it did two weeks ago.
Frances Langum at Crooks and Liars is in agreement:
And here's the background: the current Congress (and especially the Freedumb Caucus) is chock full of Class of 2010 and later numbnuts who have NO congressional experience when Obama wasn't president, and NO platform other than "repeal and replace" that Obamacare.
They don't know what else to do.
And this latest incarnation is just. terrible.
They are getting rid of preexisting conditions, people. Because who wants to cover sick people?
By the way, it's always been about getting rid of preexisting conditions and yielding a big tax cut for the rich...
According to Langum, the current follow-up on this is that the Freedom Caucus is stepping back from any deal on AHCA 2.0. Still, this is worrisome. The Republicans are not learning from their mistakes. They never had to before. Every time they caused damage to the nation since 2009, they've been rewarded with election wins (sans 2012). But now they don't have the excuses and scapegoats to point at anymore: they can't rely on the Democrats - Obama in the White House - to stop themselves from driving over that cliff.
Keep calling, America. Keep resisting. Make damn sure the Republican Congresscritters realize this time there are consequences for their bullshit.
And start getting worried about that fiscal cliff too. That Debt Ceiling problem is coming back and this lineup of Jokers to the Right are not focusing on a solution for that at all...
1 comment:
I don't think they can do it. Even if the Freedumb Cock-us falls into line, there's only so much they can do under reconciliation rules to pass the senate with 51 votes.
They can definitely gut the ACA that way, but the actual healthcare provisions won't go through the senate without being filibustered.
So do they have the attention spans to strategically knock the legs out of the ACA's financial stool so it will start failing, combined with the message discipline to avoid the political backlash that will stomp them into the dirt for such a cynical, mean-spirited intrusion into the life and death of twenty million citizens, all the while crafting an impossible replacement that won't fare any better in the senate than the AHCA would have, because THERE IS NO REPLACEMENT because the ACA IS that replacement, all before the midterms, all without making those midterms the biggest shellacking in congressional history?
Seems like kind of a heavy lift for this bunch, who as Blue Gal pointed out, don't have even the most basic proficiency in actually legislating.
Seems like a weak pole to hang your hopes on, but I just don't see them getting their act together for the first time in time to pull this off. Maybe later, after the political landscape has shifted some, so I'm not anxiety-free about this at all, but they have a few more beatings to weather before they learn how to stand up on their hind legs, as Molly would have said.
-Doug in Oakland
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