Thread: Trump says ObamaCare replacement bill has 'brought the Republican party together'

Trump says ObamaCare replacement bill has 'brought the Republican party together'

Published May 04, 2017 Fox News

Trump: This is a repeal and a replace of ObamaCare

President Trump lauded the House passage of the Republican health care bill to replace ObamaCare on Thursday, saying he's "so confident" the legislation will pass the Senate.

"This has really brought the Republican Party together," Trump said at a news conference in the White House Rose Garden.

House Republicans narrowly approved their sweeping health care bill in a 217-213 vote in the biggest step yet toward replacing the Affordable Care Act. All Democrats voted against the bill on the House floor Thursday afternoon, warning it would jeopardize coverage; 20 Republicans voted no.

The president, however, said the new Republican health care bill will be better for consumers.

"Yes, premiums will be coming down," Trump said. "Yes, deductibles will be coming down, but very importantly, it's a great plan."

House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wisc., said passage of the bill showed that Republicans are "committed to keeping our promise."

"One thing is now clear," Ryan said. "Republicans are committed to keeping our promise to lift the burden of ObamaCare, put in place better system."

Trump said while the party includes many different groups, from conservatives to more moderate Republicans, being able to has out details on health care helps lay the ground work for future legislation, such as overhauling the tax code.

"This really helps it," he said.

Trump added that he expects to have a "tremendous" four, or even eight years in office.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017...-together.html

It won't bring the NeverTrumpers in, but maybe they aren't good for the party to begin with.

Also, there has and will be so much negative news about the House Bill that passed to end Obamacare as we know it. The leading Anti-Trump themes are tens of millions of people are going to lose their health insurance, people with pre-existing conditions won't get coverage any more or will have to pay much higher rates, and Medicaid has been cut and won't be able to take care of the poor and disabled, Seniors will be charged 5 times what younger insureds are charged and people won't have full coverage (maternity care, drug rehab and emergency service, for example).

Under the bill the House just passed:

1. People can still keep their children on their policies until the kids turn 26

2. Pre-existing conditions are still protected at no higher rate if you maintain continuous coverage with no lapse longer than 63 days, if you lapse and drop coverage and then want it again, then the insurance company if they wanted to could charge you a 30% surcharge for one year. Also, if some state wants to handle pre-existing conditions themselves, they can ask for a waiver and if they meet certain conditions, they can establish high risk pools to handle these, and the federal government has allocated $138 billion over 5 years to help fund those costs. But this only applies to states who choose to opt out. It really doesn't make any sense to me why a state would want to do that, but they have their states rights to do so under this legislation. If people in that state don't like it for one reason or another, they can speak out to their state politicians.

3. There is no change to Medicaid or Medicare. There is a change to Expanded Medicaid that was part of the Obamacare legislation, ACA, and the change is for states who opted for the Expanded Medicaid, the federal contribution is changed from 90% to 50%. The reason for that is Medicaid presently contributes 50% to states for the blind and disabled. The thinking is there is no reason for states to receive more from the federal government for able-bodied people who are not otherwise Medicaid eligible to receive more contributions from the feds than they receive for the blind and disabled. Makes perfect sense to me. Everyone who is eligible for Medicaid outside of Obamacare, the poor, the disabled, the blind, low income seniors, all continue to receive exactly what they've been receiving and are entitled to and have always been entitled to. The only group affected are those who were NOT eligible for Medicaid but were allowed to tap into this program to deal with their uninsured issues as part of Obamacare legislation. There are no changes at all to Medicare and Medicaid Services.

4. As to older Americans, not yet on Medicare, currently Obamacare age rates 3 to 1, 3 times higher than the younger insured. Under the new bill, this changes to 5 to 1, or 5 times higher than the younger insured. But under the new bill maternity coverage for example is optional, so an 18 year old without maternity coverage might pay $100, so the most the 55 year old without maternity coverage might pay is $500. Under Obamacare, the 18 year old is required to purchase maternity coverage and their premiums might be $400 which at 3 x that rate would force the 55 year old to pay $1,200 a month. So under the new plan, even though the age rating is higher, the options are more numerous and the premiums much lower to begin with.

5. Obamacare requires all plans cover Essential Health Benefit Services which include 10 items:

The Affordable Care Act requires non-grand fathered health plans in the individual and small group markets to cover essential health benefits (EHB), which include items and services in the following ten benefit categories:

(1) ambulatory patient services;
(2) emergency services;
(3) hospitalization;
(4) maternity and newborn care;
(5) mental health and substance use disorder services including behavioral health treatment;
(6) prescription drugs;
(7) rehabilitative and habilitative services and devices;
( laboratory services;
(9) preventive and wellness services and chronic disease management;
(10) pediatric services, including oral and vision care.

Under the new plan, insurance companies can package or bundle these in different ways, obviously all plans will have hospitalization, prescription drugs, emergency services, rehabilitation and laboratory services. If you don't have children you may not want to sign up for maternity and newborn care or pediatric services. It gives insurance companies the option to bundle services in ways that make primary hospitalization and chronic disease management more affordable for more consumers. As a result, the thought is this will lower the premiums for more people and make it all more affordable for everyone by engaging more consumers into wanting to be insured. That together with the repeal of the mandates and health insurance from the McCarran-Ferguson Act will do just that.

Also, this repeal/replace or fix or whatever you choose to call it, doesn't go into effect until FY 2020 which would begin in the fall of 2019. So nothing changes immediately. There will also be regulatory changes within HHS that occur before the new plan goes into effect. There will also be some other bills that prevent illegal aliens from engaging in the insurance, that establishes expansion of the HSAs, that allows self-employeds to deduct their health insurance expenses, tax credits for others, and many other great changes that straighten out what I've always thought was an unfair treatment in the system. You can deduct mortgage interest and donations to your church but can't deduct health insurance or even medical expenses unless medical expenses are more than 10% of your income and only that portion over 10%? Really? Who wrote these laws??

And keep in mind the greatest legislation underlying all of this is the repeal of the McCarran-Ferguson Act with regards to health insurance, Trump's "erasing of the lines" that he campaigned about. This will create larger pools of people nationwide instead of for example, 72,000 in Iowa. You can't operate an insurance company with 72,000 customers in Iowa as effectively as you can with 500,000 customers in Iowa, Missouri, Kansas and Nebraska or 1,000,000 customers in 15 states or 1,500,000 customers in 30 states or 2,000,000 in 50 states especially when you're competing with 15 to 20 other highly competitive and effective companies nationwide.

It's basic economics, economies of scale, break-even points, point of diminishing returns, supply and demand, all of these things. When you operate nationally, you have more customers to increase your economies of scale, to exceed your break-even points to make a profit, to avoid the point of diminishing returns, based on supply and demand. The result for consumers is more services and options at a lower cost. It's just simple basic math.

So don't let the Dems scare you or frighten you or worry you. Just "rest easy" until the Senate does this stuff and hopefully they will take the time to explain all this that House for some reason never had the time or venue to do it in. Maybe Trump can do it, yeah, he should do it with some "charts". Trump make up some charts like you did for those great rallies!!! Don't waste your time answering these stupid questions from the Media. Just have a televised speech presentation somewhere, use your charts, and explain all the details of how this works to the people so they understand. Bring the team and let them take questions from the audience.