Search Results for: obamacare

The GOP Senate’s alternative to Obamacare — a first look

Featured image 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 »

Repealing Obamacare: It’s Unconstitutional!

Featured image 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 »

Why Obamacare Repeal Will Help Republicans Politically

Featured image 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 »

Obamacare Repeal Means a Major Tax Cut

Featured image 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 »

House Votes to Repeal and Replace Obamacare; Democrats Lose Big and Spin Furiously [Updated]

Featured image Today House Republicans passed an Obamacare repeal and replacement bill that was considerably improved over the one that failed some weeks ago. CNN’s report on the vote, true to form, featured an interview with Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy by a hostile reporter whose questions were along the lines of, “Do you think Republicans will pay a terrible price when voters learn sick people are thrown out in the streets?” McCarthy »

House likely to pass Obamacare improvement legislation, maybe as soon as tomorrow [UPDATED — looks like tomorrow]

Featured image 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 »

The GOP’s Current Obamacare Bill, Coherently Explained

Featured image 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 »

The new Obamacare replacement legislation — a solid step in the right direction

Featured image 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: »

Freedom Caucus endorses revised Obamacare replacement proposal

Featured image 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 »

U.N. warns that repealing Obamacare may be illegal

Featured image 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 »

Is Obamacare Repeal Back On the Front Burner?

Featured image 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 »

Is Obamacare an entitlement program?

Featured image I guess so. Medicaid is considered an entitlement program, so Obamacare should be too. However, Obamacare (and Medicaid) differs materially from Social Security and Medicare, the classic entitlement programs. Everyone can get Social Security and Medicare if they reach a certain age. Moreover, because we pay into these programs, there’s a strong case that we are entitled to receive benefits. Obamacare is a welfare program. It provides free health insurance »

The Obamacare replacement blame game

Featured image From the Washington Post: President Trump cast blame Sunday for the collapse of his effort to overhaul the health-care system on conservative interest groups and far-right Republican lawmakers, shifting culpability to his own party after initially faulting Democratic intransigence. His attack — starting with a tweet that singled out the House Freedom Caucus as well as the influential Club for Growth and Heritage Action for America — marked a new »

How to reverse this week’s Obamacare defeat

Featured image My take on the political implications of the House’s failure to pass the GOP’s repeal-and-replace bill differs a little bit from John’s. In my view, the Democrats have good reason to be pleased by that failure, as things stand now. The Democrats’ argument is straightforward. As Scott says, Republicans have been running against Obamacare for years — promising to repeal and replace it. Yet, with a big majority in House »

The persistence of Obamacare

Featured image Republicans have campaigned against Obamacare roughly since the memory of man runneth not to the contrary. After the failure yesterday in the House, however, they’re going to get back to us on that. Or the check is in the mail. Or something like that. Tim Alberta looks “Inside the GOP’s health care debacle.” Philip Klein offers a gimlet-eyed assessment of what just happened in “GOP cave on Obamacare repeal is »

Trump demands Friday vote on Obamacare

Featured image My mantra on health care reform has been that it’s more important to do it right than to do it fast. President Trump disagrees. He insists that the House vote on Speaker Ryan’s (and his) flawed legislation tomorrow. After negotiations broke down today, Trump delivered an ultimatum: Pass the bill tomorrow or I’m moving on from Obamacare repeal. Congress can repeal and replace Obamacare even if the president moves on. »

Can Obamacare be killed?

Featured image Can an entitlement program be killed? That seems to me the question implicit in the unfolding drama over the repeal of Obamacare. With their majorities in Congress and Obama in the White House, Democrats forced the passage of Obamacare without a single Republican vote. The party discipline they displayed was impressive to observe. In the style of the Roman captives paying their respects to the emperor Claudius, the Democrats who »