Thread: Trump tries to pressure Senate Republicans on health care

Trump tries to pressure Senate Republicans on health care

Darlene Superville Associated Press
May 7, 2017, 11:27 pm

President Donald Trump urged Senate Republicans on Sunday to "not let the American people down," as the contentious debate over overhauling the U.S. health care systems shifts to Congress' upper chamber, where a vote is potentially weeks, if not months, away.

Some senators have already voiced displeasure with the health care bill that cleared the House last week, with Republicans providing all the "yes" votes in the 217-213 count. They cited concerns about potential higher costs for older people and those with pre-existing conditions, along with cuts to Medicaid.

Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, a moderate Republican whose vote will be critical to getting a bill to Trump's desk and who voiced similar concerns, said the Senate would not take up the House bill.

"The Senate is starting from scratch. We're going to draft our bill, and I'm convinced we will take the time to do it right," she said.

You wouldn't let a little thing like not having a corkscrew stop you from enjoying that bottle of wine you just bought, right?
Mick Mulvaney, Trump's budget director, also said the version that gets to the president will likely differ from the House measure. Such a scenario would then force the House and Senate to work together to forge a compromise bill that both houses can support.

Collins also complained that the House rushed a vote before the Congressional Budget Office could complete its cost-benefit analysis.

Eager to check off a top campaign promise, Trump sought Sunday to pressure Senate Republicans on the issue.

"Republican senators will not let the American people down!" Trump tweeted from his private golf course in central New Jersey, where he has stayed since late Thursday. "ObamaCare premiums and deductibles are way up — it was a lie and it is dead!"

Trump has said the current system is failing as insurers pull out of markets, forcing costs and deductibles to rise.

The White House on Sunday scoffed at Democratic claims that voters will punish the GOP in the 2018 elections for upending former President Barack Obama's law. "I think that the Republican Party will be rewarded," said Reince Priebus, Trump's chief of staff. House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of California has threatened that GOP lawmakers will "glow in the dark" over their vote.

The House bill would end the health care law's fines on people who don't buy policies and erase its taxes on health industry businesses and higher earners. It would dilute consumer-friendly insurance coverage requirements, like prohibiting higher premiums for customers with pre-existing medical conditions and watering down the subsidies that help consumers afford health insurance.

Obama defended his signature achievement in Boston Sunday night while accepting the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award.

"I hope that current members of Congress recall that it actually doesn't take a lot of courage to aid those who are already powerful, already comfortable, already influential," he said. "But it does require some courage to champion the vulnerable, and the sick and the infirm."

Major medical and other groups, including the American Medical Association, opposed the House bill. Democrats are also refusing to participate in any effort to dismantle Obama's law, while some Republican senators — Rob Portman of Ohio, Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, Cory Gardner of Colorado and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska — object to cutting Medicaid, the federal-state health care program for the poor and disabled.

The ACA expanded Medicaid with extra payments to 31 states to cover more people. The House bill halts the expansion, in addition to cutting federal spending on the program, which Trump's health chief argued is flawed and dictates too much from Washington.

Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price argued that states will get more freedom to experiment with the program and make sure that people who rely on Medicaid get the care and coverage they need.

"There are no cuts to the Medicaid program," Price insisted Sunday, adding that resources are being doled out to allow states greater flexibility.

Gov. John Kasich of Ohio questioned what would happen to the mentally ill, drug addicts and people with chronic illnesses under the changes proposed for Medicaid.

"They are going to be living in the emergency rooms again," potentially driving up health care costs, Kasich predicted.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., plans to move forward under special procedures that allow legislation to pass with a simple majority vote, instead of the 60 usually required for major bills in the Senate. That means McConnell can afford to lose just two senators; Vice President Mike Pence would vote to break a 50-50 tie in his constitutional role as vice president of the Senate.

House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., appeared resigned to the legislative reality that the bill he unveiled with great fanfare, after years of Republican pledges to replace what's become known as "Obamacare," will be altered as part of a "multistage process."

"We think we need to do even more support for people who are older and also more support for people with pre-existing conditions," Ryan acknowledged. "The Senate will complete the job."

A political group with ties to House Republican leadership, American Action Network, said Sunday it was buying $500,000 in television time to promote the Republican health care bill. The ad will focus on key elements of the American Health Care Act and thank Ryan and fellow Republicans for "keeping their promise" on the health care issue, the group said.

On the other side, a health advocacy group is launching a six-figure advertising campaign this week targeting 24 Republican House members who voted to repeal Barack Obama's health care law. Save My Care says the campaign will include a mix of TV and digital advertising, costing more than a half million dollars.

Among those being targeted: Tom MacArthur of New Jersey, the moderate Republican who helped revive the bill by authoring an amendment on pre-existing conditions.

Some House lawmakers have been challenged by the public over the House vote.

Conservative Rep. Raul Labrador, R-Idaho, drew boos Friday at a public meeting for his response to a constituent who said the House bill tells people on Medicaid to "accept dying.

Labrador responded: "That line is so indefensible. Nobody dies because they don't have access to health care." The comment traveled quickly on social media.

Collins and Ryan appeared on ABC's "This Week," Price was on NBC's "Meet the Press" and on CNN's "State of the Union" with Kasich, while Mulvaney was interviewed on CBS' "Face the Nation." Priebus was on "Fox News Sunday."

Associated Press writer Hope Yen in Washington contributed to this report.
Copyright © 2017, Chicago Tribune



http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/n...507-story.html

Pass HR 372, the repeal of McCarran with respect to health insurance, first. This will lay the legal framework needed to "erase the lines", restore interstate, national competition to the health insurance industry which will increase options, services, choices, plans, groups, and lower premiums for everyone, thus bringing in new customers voluntarily.

Note: HR 372 (repeal of health insurance from the McCarran-Ferguson Act of 1945) passed the US House of Representatives on March 22, 2017 by an unprecedented bipartisan historic vote of 416-7, was forwarded to the US Senate on March 23, and assigned to the Judiciary Committee, Chairman, Chuck Grassley. There was no reporting on this vote by any media, network, cable, press or otherwise. A total media black-out of this important and historic vote, for some untold bizarre reason.

US Healthcare- Who Pays for this Boondoggle?

March 30, 2017


"Every family is one serious medical event
away from financial destruction."

Glen, a recently retired American,
gives his reaction to the current US debate
over health insurance.

I welcome reader views. (hmakow@gmail.com)

by Glen
(henrymakow.com)

Obamacare sucks a big one. I recently retired and will be paying close to $750.00 per month for health insurance for my wife and I. While I was employed, I was fortunate enough to work for a fairly large local government that had a health care plan. My premium while I was working was $160 a month, while my employer chipped in $644 a month for my health care insurance as a paid benefit.

I have a retired single woman friend whose premium was $150.00 per month before Obamacare. She is now paying $530.00 per month with a $7000.00 deductible per year, and it is still going to go higher. Freakin' insanity.

My older brother came down with severe pneumonia and had to be helicoptered from his small town to a larger city. It was a 112 mile flight. The insurance company was billed $43,000 for the ride.

As for the ability to get good service in a timely manner; not going to happen. I recently had a partial knee replacement. It took 3 months to get a day surgery scheduled and done.

The cost of my surgery was somewhere around $30,000 dollars. It was day surgery and took about 2 hours to perform. The parts for the surgery (I call it my knee rebuild kit, fit in a 6"x 8"x 4" box) came to a total of $14,000. At the time of this surgery I was still employed so my cost were minimal. My deduction was $100 dollars and my co-pay was $500 dollars.

I will be getting my other knee done under retirement insurance. My deductible will now jump to $1500 and my co-pay will now come in at $5500. If you do the math, I will now pay $6400 dollars out of pocket. Again it will be a 3 month wait.

I don't know how it works for the "poor" and "dis-advantaged" but the average working Joe Blow is paying through the nose and out the ass.

The problem we have with health care cost in America is not a new one. It has been rising at a steady rate for years, but under Obama, it has sky rocketed to insane heights. The system is so corrupted by now I really don't how any one man or one bill can straighten it out. All I know is every family is one serious medical event away from financial destruction.

Of course our politicians and 1 percenters will always have the very best care by the very best doctors. As for our politicians, It one of the perks for working on the behest of big medical, big pharma, and big insurance. As for the top 1 percenters, they have plenty green they have made off the backs of the ever diminishing middle class working man and woman.

David Brooks pretty much nailed it when he stated: "The Ryan health care plan punishes the very people Trump and Bannon had vowed to help. It would raise premiums by as much as 25 percent on people between 50 and 64, one core of the Trump voter base. It would completely hammer working-class voters whose incomes put them just above the Medicaid threshold. The Trump health care and budget plans will be harsh on the poor, which we expected. But they'll also be harsh on the working class, which we didn't."


MEXICO

Jim Stone is a former American who now lives in Mexico and is the owner of the alternative news site jimstone.is. Jim has had first hand experience with health care in both countries and compares the service and cost in both countries. Here is a look at Jim's experiences:

BOTTOM LINE: AMERICAN MEDICAL IS A CRIMINAL SYSTEM. THERE IS NO CONCEIVABLE EXCUSE FOR IT. IT IS A MASSIVE EXTORTION RACKET. THEY TAKE PEOPLE IN DIFFICULT SITUATIONS THAT ARE CHEAP TO FIX, AND DESTROY THEM. ...
The criminal racket HAS TO STOP. IF TRUMP WANTS TO ADDRESS THE REAL MEDICAL PROBLEM AMERICA HAS, HE HAS TO OPENLY STATE THAT THE ENTIRE SYSTEM IS A FILTHY ROTTEN CRIMINAL EXTORTION RACKET FROM TOP TO BOTTOM, AND BEGIN CRIMINAL PROSECUTIONS.

NO OBAMACARE. NO RYANCARE. Simply TOTALLY de-regulate medical, do the proper jailings and let competition do it's job. THAT is the real health care fix.

I would never believe this if I was not in Mexico to see it for myself. Contrary to what you are told in the scamming MSM, Mexicans are not walking around spewing disease and dropping body parts. Their medicine here is more than equal to America's and it is actually affordable with no insurance or government subsidy at all.

Contrary to what you are brainwashed to believe, America has horse crap medical care. Dark dungeon spooky hospitals that stink, are proven to not be sanitary, and present like death centers. Hospitals don't have the same feel in Mexico, they, aside from whatever is wrong with you to put you there, are quite cheery. Yes, they all have WIFI that people use the whole day from their beds if they are able to.

I have had a medical incident here that would have destroyed me in America, yet medicine is SO CHEAP all I had to do is say I had a problem, and people who read this site took care of it in a day. That was nice to have happen. But it also shows that medicine in Mexico is affordable. My problem was not "cheap" but I am certain it would have been end-of-life in America. $50,000 AT LEAST, with no real cure, only symptom management. The diagnosis for the latest problem was 20 pages long! The problem was so technical that everything had to be analyzed, including things like ph balance, blood toxin load, exact mineral levels to see what was doing what, I saw the diagnostic list and can't even begin to say everything that was on it. Stuff you'd never even think about. Caveat: She kept the list. She wanted me as a permanent patient. So what if she is going to fix problems (she obviously did) and not just manage symptoms for max profit.

Mexican medical costs for services you can cross reference with American prices easily, these prices are not subsidized or discounted, or in "cheap hell holes", these will be done in top level "cheery" "marriott" type hospitals:

Sonogram, complete with all print outs: $10-20

X-ray, complete with the plate/film/whatever it is called, it will be at least 11X17 in size: $20-30.

Cat Scan: Various prices, but less than $100.

MRI in the latest newest 2014 model GE MRI "donut" machine with 3 teslas or more: $150 - 250

Open bed MRI: Up to $350. These are used for comfort or when someone is too claustrophobic to handle a donut MRI.

These prices are current. Go check them out in the U.S. and see what your scam level is set at.

BOTTOM LINE: MEDICAL REFORM IN AMERICA EQUALS ENFORCEMENT OF ETHICS LAWS AND LITTLE ELSE. If this is not done, the problem will not be fixed AT ALL no matter what "Trump dream care" ends up being.


- See more at: https://www.henrymakow.com/2017/03/U....ZpWUK2gm.dpuf

Oh this is a great story to tell all the illegal aliens to head to Mexico for cheap good medical care. I bet truth be told their schools are better too.

Time to Head Home Mexico and take all the Guatemalans, Hondurans, and El Salvadorans here illegally as well with you!!

Originally Posted by Judy

Oh this is a great story to tell all the illegal aliens to head to Mexico for cheap good medical care. I bet truth be told their schools are better too.

Time to Head Home Mexico and take all the Guatemalans, Hondurans, and El Salvadorans here illegally as well with you!!

From what I understand many Americans do travel to Mexico for some medical and dental procedures while we're stuck paying for illegal alien free medical care through excessive billing. I wonder if the Guatemalan, Honduran, and El Salvador illegals in Mexico receive free medical care paid for by Mexico's citizens?