Obamacare
June 25, 2017 — Paul Mirengoff
Yuval Levin takes a close look at the Senate health care bill. He agrees with those of us who don’t consider it a repeal of Obamacare, Rather, like the House bill, the Senate version “addresses discrete problems with Obamacare within the framework it created, while pursuing some significant structural reforms to Medicaid.” Levin believes, as I do, that “the cause of good policy (almost regardless of your priorities in health
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June 23, 2017 — Paul Mirengoff
Henry Olsen, master election analyst and a scholar of Ronald Reagan, asks what position Reagan would take in the Obamacare debate. Olsen concludes that The Gipper would (and did) back government-subsidized medical care for people who couldn’t otherwise afford it and would approve of federal subsidies such as those contained in Obamacare. Olsen bases these conclusions mainly on Reagan’s support for the Kerr Mills Act. Enacted in the pre-Medicare era,
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June 22, 2017 — Paul Mirengoff
Senate Republicans today unveiled their health care bill. It’s 142 pages long. I have not yet read it. According to New York Times reporters Robert Pear and Thomas Kaplan, the Senate bill maintains the structure of its House counterpart, but is more “moderate.” For example, it offers “more financial assistance to some lower-income people to help them defray the rapidly rising cost of private health insurance.” In addition, according to
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June 13, 2017 — Paul Mirengoff
The Wall Street Journal editors ask: “If Democrats believe the lesson of ObamaCare is that the government should have even more control over health care, then why not show how it would work in the liberal paradise?” The question is prompted by the California Senate’s recent passage of a single-payer health care bill. The legislation guarantees free government-run health care for California’s 39 million residents — no co-pays, deductibles or
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May 9, 2017 — Scott Johnson
President Obama is still lying about Obamacare, peddling the fiction that it covered 20 million people who lacked health insurance and that the Democrats who voted in favor of it made out “profiles in courage” rather than pols following the party line. Accepting the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award on Sunday, Obama spoke at what felt like Castroite length (text and video here). All that was missing was
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May 7, 2017 — John Hinderaker
More evidence that for Democrats, the “Constitution” means whatever they are in favor of at the moment: New York’s Attorney General says it is unconstitutional to repeal Obamacare: New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, a longtime critic of his fellow Empire State resident [Donald Trump], tells Erin Burnett he’s planning a lawsuit should the legislation be signed into law. “If they pass the bill in the form the House passed
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May 7, 2017 — John Hinderaker
Democrats are pretending to be delighted that Obamacare appears on its way out, and the liberal media parrot their claim that Obamacare repeal will be a political disaster for Republicans. To take one of many instances, the Associated Press wrote last night: “Democrats see a winning issue in opposing GOP health bill.” Democrats aren’t happy about the House Republican health care bill, but they are upbeat about the prospect of
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May 6, 2017 — Paul Mirengoff
CNN and other liberal media outlets are pointing out that the group of Republican Senators working together on the matter of Obamacare replacement contains no females. CNN’s Erin Burnett slammed Republicans for this fact. Here are the members of the group: Mitch McConnell John Cornyn John Thune John Barrasso Lamar Alexander Mike Enzi Orrin Hatch Ted Cruz Mike Lee Tom Cotton Cory Gardner Rob Portman Pat Toomey The first four
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May 5, 2017 — Paul Mirengoff
Sean Sullivan of the Washington Post argues that Sen. Tom Cotton is “walking a tightrope” when it comes to Obamacare. Sullivan says that Cotton finds himself in this precarious position because he campaigned against Obamacare but Arkansas is “filled with constituents who have benefited from Obamacare.” Sullivan adds that Cotton and other Republicans in his position must also worry about President Trump’s “willingness to lash out at unruly GOP lawmakers.”
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May 5, 2017 — John Hinderaker
I was puzzled when I heard Nancy Pelosi denouncing the just-passed House Obamacare repeal bill as a “tax cut for the rich.” I am entirely in favor of tax cuts for the rich, but had never thought of that as one of Obamacare repeal’s key virtues. It turns out that repealing Obamacare is, indeed, a major tax cut, although not mostly for the “rich.” Americans For Tax Reform calculates that
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May 4, 2017 — Paul Mirengoff
After the House passed the AHCA today, Democrats broke into song. They sang “Na na na na, na na na na, hey hey hey, goodbye!” and waved bye-bye at GOP members. That’s an odd response to the passage of a measure Democrats claim will wreck health care in America and, indeed, kill people. Republicans didn’t sing “good-bye” to Democrats when the Dems passed Obamacare. They knew that Democrats might well
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May 3, 2017 — Paul Mirengoff
Two key moderate Republicans say they will support a Republican plan to “replace” Obamacare. I put the word replace in quotation marks because I think the word improve better describes what the proposal does. The two Republicans are Reps. Fred Upton (Michigan) and Billy Long (Missouri). They were won over after a visit to the White House by the addition to the existing proposal of $8 billion in funds over
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April 28, 2017 — John Hinderaker
Pretty much all conservatives have been frustrated by the House’s inability to pass Obamacare repeal and replacement. Something that seemed simple on the campaign trail has turned out not to be simple in practice. House Republicans now have produced a second version of the bill, which has been improved so as to draw support from the Freedom Caucus. But what exactly is going on? What would the new House bill
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April 27, 2017 — Paul Mirengoff
From a conservative perspective, I think it’s clear that the new House Obamacare legislation — the MacArthur Amendment — is an improvement over the original bill concocted by Speaker Ryan. But how much of one? Yuval Levin makes the case that the core concept of the new legislation — state waivers from Obamacare insurance regulations — represents a significant improvement, in terms of both substance and political pragmatism. He writes:
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April 26, 2017 — Paul Mirengoff
The House Freedom Caucus, which helped block Paul Ryan’s original Obamacare repeal and replacement legislation, has agreed to support a revised bill. The Washington Post describes, in general terms, the new approach. If the new incarnation gains sufficient support from moderate House Republicans, it will pass. This might happen quickly. For me, the key question in evaluating Obamacare replacement legislation is the impact on premiums. Not having studied the new
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April 26, 2017 — Paul Mirengoff
Dana Milbank reports, with glee, that the United Nations “has contacted the Trump administration as part of an investigation into whether repealing [Obamacare] without an adequate substitute for the millions who would lose health coverage would be a violation of several international conventions that bind the United States.” The warning comes from the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner on Human Rights in Geneva. The U.N. Human Rights Commission (now
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April 6, 2017 — John Hinderaker
Reports from Washington are frustratingly incomplete, but it appears that the Trump administration is renewing its effort to repeal Obamacare. Reuters strikes a remarkably optimistic note: The majority of House Freedom Caucus members will vote for a Republican healthcare bill if changes offered by the White House are included in the legislation, the head of the conservative group of House Republicans said on Thursday. U.S. Representative Mark Meadows said the
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