Category Archives: medical news

medical news, national news, political news

CBO verdict: Not good for GOP repeal of ACA

A jury — if not the jury — has weighed in on the Republicans’ version of health care reform.

It doesn’t look good for legislation designed to replace the Affordable Care Act.

The verdict comes from the notably non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, which says that under the GOP plan 23 million Americans will lose their health insurance by 2026. That’s a 1 million-person “improvement” over the bill that didn’t even get a vote in the Republican-led House of Representatives.

The latest version of Trumpcare got a vote, but it came before the CBO weighed in with its analysis of it. Hey, why wait when you’ve got a political agenda to fulfill?

Deficit reduction? It’s not as good as the initial bill. Again, House members didn’t bother to wait for the nitty-gritty before sending it to the Senate.

Donald Trump, House Speaker Paul Ryan, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and other prominent Republicans all promised — pledged, crossed their hearts and swore on a stack of Bibles — that Americans wouldn’t lose their health insurance if the GOP replaced the Affordable Care Act with something of their own making. The ACA, of course, was President Barack Obama’s signature piece of domestic legislation, which of course is why congressional Republicans want to get rid of it.

They contend it is failing. The president calls it a “disaster.” After the failed vote on the initial repeal/replacement bill, the president said he was willing to wait for the ACA to collapse, leaving Americans in the health-care lurch. I guess he wanted to say “I told you so.”

The Hill reports: “Over time, it would become more difficult for less healthy people (including people with preexisting medical conditions) in those states to purchase insurance because their premiums would continue to increase rapidly,” the report said.

The ACA repeal effort was shoved down Democratic House members’ throats, much in the manner the GOP said of the ACA’s enactment in 2010. Hey, turnabout is fair play … isn’t that the name of the game?

It still stinks.

medical news, national news, political news

GOP now reaping what it has sown

John Boehner was angry, man. He was furious when he took the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives.

The Republican congressman from Ohio was furious that Democrats had pushed a bill that sought to reform health care without even reading the massive piece of legislation.

He bellowed, blustered and berated his “friends” on the Democratic side of the floor for shoving this bill down the throats of their Republican colleagues.

Boehner’s anger was righteous.

The Affordable Care Act became law in 2010. Boehner would eventually become House speaker. He would file a lawsuit to get the law repealed. Speaker Boehner, though, bailed on public service after continuing to fight with the TEA Party wing of his Republican House caucus. He’d had enough.

Then the 2016 election occurred. Donald J. Trump was elected president. He promised to “repeal and replace” the ACA. This past week, the GOP-controlled House approved a bill we’ll call “Trumpcare.” It’s an alternative to the ACA. It passed by just four votes out of 430 cast in the House.

But wait! Did the GOP leadership know what was in the bill? Did they read the legislation? Did their GOP caucus members read it? Do they know all the nuts and bolts of it?

Hah! Hardly.

They’ve repeated the sin of their colleagues. Does it make their effort to “shove it down Democrats’ throats” any more palatable? Not in the least.

Instead, GOP House members are hearing loud and clear from their constituents a ringing message: The folks back home don’t like what they’ve passed and what they have foisted onto the Senate for its consideration.

Meanwhile, the president who has crowed about keeping his campaign pledge now has to persuade the Senate to follow the House’s lead. Trump, the guy with zero government experience or knowledge of how it works on Washington, D.C., is going to recieve yet another lesson in how Congress just doesn’t do the president’s bidding whenever he barks the order.

And those Republican members of the House of Representatives who voted for Trumpcare are going to get a taste of what they sought to deliver to Democrats in 2010.

Payback truly is a bitch … you know?

local news, medical news, political news

Talk to us, Rep. Thornberry

The fellow who represents me in Congress has made his point pretty clear: He doesn’t intend to conduct “town hall meetings” with constituents during these lengthy congressional breaks.

I beg to differ with Rep. Mac Thornberry’s reluctance to speak to groups of his constituents.

The Clarendon Republican lawmaker has just voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act and to replace it with a Trumpcare version of health care overhaul.

Congress is taking some time off. Its House members and senators have fanned out across the land. Some of them are facing their critics, namely their constituents, who are questioning them about their votes in favor of Trumpcare. Rep. Thornberry, to my knowledge, hasn’t scheduled any such public events.

He ought to rethink his schedule.

Do I expect him to get a dressing down from angry 13th Congressional District constituents? Well, I don’t know. He is considered a lead-pipe cinch for re-election in 2018; his district is as reliably Republican as any in the country. Then again, other GOP House members who are equally safe and secure have been getting pounded by their constituents.

I actually want to applaud those Republicans who have voted for Trumpcare to stand before their “bosses” and explain themselves. I think much less of those who have chosen other pursuits while they are at home, ostensibly tending to “constituent business.”

Thornberry’s been in Congress for a long time now. He took office in 1995. He chairs the House Armed Services Committee. He’s got a big job. He once led a GOP effort to come up with ways to protect us against cyber-crime. I’m hoping whatever he came up with is being employed by our spooks to protect our national security secrets against hackers from, oh, Russia!

However, health care is on people’s minds these days. Even, perhaps, out here in the 13th Congressional District.

We’ve been represented in Congress by someone who has aligned himself with those who want to throw out the Affordable Care Act. The Trumpcare replacement well could cost a lot of Thornberry’s constituents their health insurance.

I believe he owes them a thorough explanation of why he cast one of the House’s “yes” votes.

medical news

‘Nobody dies’ because they lack health care?

U.S. Rep. Raul Labrador needs to have his mouth washed out with soap.

The Idaho Republican went home this week, stood before a town hall crowd, and said this in response to a statement from one of his constituents:

“Nobody dies because they don’t have access to health care.”

That was the wrong thing to say, young man.

The Lewiston, Idaho, crowd shouted him down. They hooted, hollered, hissed. Why? The answer is clear: They disagreed with Rep. Labrador’s silly assertion.

Of course people have died because they can’t get health care!

Rep. Labrador had just voted for the Trumpcare proposal that repeals the Affordable Care Act and replaces it with the Republican-crafted alternative. It passed the House by the thinnest of margins, 217-213 and now heads to the Senate, where it’s likely to be torn up, tossed into the trash bin; senators then will write their own version of health care overhaul.

Other lawmakers have gone home and they, too, will get a bellyful of bitching from their constituents over the vote that the House has just cast.

A word to the wise to the rest of them: Don’t repeat Raul Labrador’s silly comment.

medical news

‘Trumpcare’ it will be

1 Comment

Barack Obama’s critics have relished the opportunity to call his landmark health insurance overhaul legislation “Obamacare.”

I chose a while ago to forgo that term, preferring to call it by its official name: the Affordable Care Act. Any reference to the “Obamacare” would acknowledge that’s the term others have hung on it. The former president himself eventually would refer to the ACA by the term used by his critics.

Obama no longer is in office. Donald J. Trump is now the president. Trump has pushed another piece of legislation. It is called the American Health Care Act.

In the spirit of those who were so highly critical of the president’s predecessor, I am now preferring to refer to the AHCA as “Trumpcare.”

Hey, I am as critical of the current president as Barack H. Obama’s critics were of him. My loathing for Donald J. Trump entitles me, therefore, to refer to his version of health care overhaul as Trumpcare.

media news, medical news, national news

Trump assails media yet again

Why is it that the Fake News rarely reports Ocare is on its last legs and that insurance companies are fleeing for their lives? It’s dead!

That, dear reader, is one of Donald J. Trump’s latest tweets in a Twitter tirade he launched late today against the national news media.

I find it fascinating.

The president accuses the media of failing to report that the Affordable Care Act is collapsing.

Excuse me, Mr. President?

Trump and his allies keep saying it. The media keep reporting it. It’s no longer a novel notion.

I happen to disagree with the president’s assertion about the ACA. Isn’t that fair enough? He’s entitled to his opinion, while others are entitled to theirs — even if they are at odds with what the president says or believes.

The road ahead for the bill that the House approved to replace the ACA remains full of land mines. The U.S. Senate isn’t likely to adopt the House’s version of health care overhaul.

The media’s job is to report the progress of that journey regardless of whether it’s positive news or negative news for the Trump administration.

You can bet your last nickel, though, that the media are reporting precisely what the president is saying, which includes pronouncements about the future of the Affordable Care Act.

medical news

As if we needed reminding … POTUS is clueless

Donald J. Trump’s endorsement of the Australian universal health care system confirms what many of us have thought for as long as this individual has been involved in politics.

He doesn’t know anything. Not about public policy. Or governance. Or public service. Nothing outside the realm of personal enrichment and self-aggrandizement.

The president and his Republican colleagues in the U.S. House of Representatives had just passed a bill that repeals the Affordable Care Act and replaces it with something called the American Health Care Act. Then he jetted to New York and sat next to Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull — and then lauded the Australian health care system.

The president said we should pattern our system after the Aussies’ system of providing universal health care for every citizen. How do they do it? The government pays for it.

But wait! Didn’t the GOP members of Congress want to do away with government mandates? Didn’t they insist on letting the marketplace set the price for health care insurance? Haven’t they been savaging the ACA as some sort of “socialized medicine” scheme cooked up by the socialists ensconced in the White House, led by President Barack Obama?

The GOP’s main man, the president of the United States, just endorsed a government-run health care system that reportedly works pretty well for the people it serves.

The president doesn’t know anything! He is utterly and completely unaware of the very public policy he says he favors.

He’s been involved in politics for less than two years. He rode down the escalator at Trump Tower in June 2015 to announce his presidential campaign. He got elected and has continued almost daily to demonstrate his absolute ignorance of the office he now holds and the awesome responsibility he has assumed.

I truly don’t expect him to learn all there is to know about everything in such a short span of time. However, it wasn’t too much to expect that he at least had some semblance of a grasp of policy matters before deciding to run for president of the United States.

medical news

Mr. POTUS, you’ve just contradicted yourself on health care

I am scratching my head so vigorously now that my scalp is likely to start bleeding.

Donald J. Trump sat next to the Australian prime minister, Malcom Trumbull, and praised his the health care system provided in the nation Down Under.

Australia has a universal health care system, which the U.S. president declared is far superior to ours.

GOP goes in the opposite direction

Why, then, did the president praise House of Representatives Republicans for approving a bill that some analysts suggest is going to deprive as many as 20 million Americans of their health insurance?

Trump declared victory after that vote. He said premiums will decline, no one will lose health coverage and he intends to march forward with an effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

The alternative appears to provide less coverage than the ACA.

But, but …

The president now sings praises to Australia’s universal health care system — which the government provides for every citizen — as being better than what we’re doing here.

Here’s how the Washington Post described the Australian plan: “Australia has a government-funded health-care system, called Medicare, that exists alongside private insurance. The system is funded in part by taxes, including on the wealthy.”

Go … figure, man.

medical news, national news

Cheers have ‘Mission Accomplished’ ring to them

All that back-slapping and high-fiving at the White House today seems a bit premature — to say the very least.

Congressional Republicans sauntered down from Capitol Hill to the White House to congratulate themselves for approving a measure that repeals the Affordable Care Act and replaces it with the American Health Care Act.

“Today we made history by taking the first important step toward rescuing hardworking families from the failures and skyrocketing costs of Obamacare,” House Majority Whip Steve Scalise,  R-La., said in a statement.

They all are members of the House of Representatives. The bill, which passed 217-213 — with zero Democratic votes — now must go to the Senate, where their fellow Republicans are sending signals that the House bill is dead on arrival. It’s a goner. The Senate is going to craft an entirely different bill.

As The Hill reported: “The bill, known as the American Health Care Act, repeals the core elements of ObamaCare, including its subsidies to help people get insurance coverage, expansion of Medicaid, taxes and mandates for people to get coverage.

“In its place, the bill provides a new tax credit aimed at helping people buy insurance, though it would provide less help than ObamaCare to low-income people.”

The Hill also reported: “The measure is expected to undergo a major overhaul in the Senate, especially on the Medicaid front, where several Republican senators from states that accepted the expansion are wary of cutting it off.”

Cheers are quite premature

I was reminded of another celebratory moment in recent U.S. history.

It was in 2003 and President George W. Bush flew onto the deck of an aircraft carrier, jumped out of the jet aircraft wearing a flight suit, changed his duds and then delivered a speech under a banner that declared “Mission Accomplished.”

The president was saluting the capture of the late dictator Saddam Hussein, who our troops pulled out of a spider hole in which he was hiding. The Iraqi dictator was put on trial, convicted and hanged.

The Iraq War, though, raged on … and on … and on. Thousands of American service personnel were killed and injured for years as they sought to bring the fighting under control.

The “Mission Accomplished” banner was premature in the extreme.

So was today’s GOP cork-popping at the White House.

medical news, national news, political news

Get set for next fight over health care overhaul

Congressional Republicans kept their vow to vote — no matter what — on repealing the Affordable Care Act.

It was a squeaker, 217 “yes” votes to 213 “no” votes. Every congressional Democrat voted “no,” which gives the minority a faint claim of bipartisanship, as some moderate Republicans joined them in voting against the Trumpcare health bill.

I want to make only a couple of observations about this effort.

First, Republicans yapped and yammered that Democrats shoved the ACA down the GOP’s throats in 2010. The GOP response was to do precisely the same thing to Democrats. Payback is a bitch, right?

The GOP throat-shoving, though, took on a little different tone than what the Democrats did in 2010. President Obama tried to get Republicans to sign on, but was unsuccessful. Donald J. Trump didn’t make that effort; neither did House Speaker Paul Ryan. Oh, no. They relied on their healthy Republican majority to win the day — barely, it turns out — in a now-or-never vote on the House floor.

Second, the initial effort to repeal the ACA and replace it with the American Health Care Act, ran into a Congressional Budget Office “score” that told a grim story of 24 million Americans losing their health insurance under the new plan.

This time the GOP didn’t bother to wait for the CBO to “score” this latest rendition of the replacement bill. Republicans forged ahead anyway. Damn the scoring! Who needs to know how this is going to affect Americans?

Oh, and the polls around the country indicate a growing base of support for the ACA. Hmm. Imagine that. The House of Representatives isn’t exactly representing its constituents.

The AHCA now heads to the Senate, where it faces an even steeper climb than it had in the House. The GOP majority in the upper chamber is pretty skimpy and the Republicans cannot afford to lose any support among their ranks. The initial signs don’t look good for final approval in the Senate.

House Republicans sought to win over reluctant conservatives by sweetening the pie for them; then they assuaged some moderate GOP concerns by tossing in some money to pay for those with pre-existing medical conditions.

What say you, senators?

Now it falls on the Senate to decide what to do with this legislation that doesn’t yet have any analysis on how much it will cost and how many Americans might lose their insurance.

Meanwhile, House Republicans are back-slapping each other like crazy. They said they’d cast that vote to repeal President Obama’s signature domestic achievement.

They got the job done. Now they can go home for their 11-day recess. I would bet real American money they’re going to run into a good bit anger among the home folks.