Tuesday, August 1, 2017

Mr. Trump's Hate-Filled Rhetoric Leads To... Bi-Partisan Efforts To Shore Up ObamaCare 2.0.


While 45 wastes his twitter-rage on threatening the Senate, if they don't resume his thrice-failed repeal attempts. . .

Both GOP and Democratic Senators are working resolutely, and quietly, together -- to shore up the insurance markets, under ObamaCare. Those same markets 45 is trying mightily to make implode. Below is a bit from tonight's New York Times -- but this is exactly what I hoped for: Trump is going to get almost the polar opposite of what he tried to bully his way into.

. . . .Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, the influential chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, announced that his panel would begin work in early September on legislation to “stabilize and strengthen the individual health insurance market” for 2018. He publicly urged Mr. Trump to continue making payments to health insurance companies to reimburse them for reducing the out-of-pocket medical expenses of low-income people.

In the House, two Republicans, Representatives Tom Reed of New York and Charlie Dent of Pennsylvania, teamed with Democrats to promote incremental health legislation that would also fund the cost-sharing subsidies.

The moves were a remarkable response to the president’s repeated threats to send health insurance markets into a tailspin. They offered tangible indications of cooperation between the parties after Republican efforts to scrap the Affordable Care Act collapsed in the Senate last week, all but ending the seven-year Republican quest to overturn President Barack Obama’s signature domestic achievement. Lawmakers from both parties concede that the health law needs improvement, as consumers face sharp premium increases and a shrinking number of insurance options in many states.

These problems have been exacerbated by a president who has publicly predicted that the Affordable Care Act will “implode” and appears determined to help fulfill that prophecy. Mr. Trump has repeatedly threatened to cut off the subsidies, known as cost-sharing reduction payments, which reimburse insurers for cutting deductibles and other out-of-pocket costs for millions of low-income people. Without them, insurers would almost certainly raise premiums not only for poor consumers but also for many other people buying plans on the individual insurance market. . . .


So, the ACA of 2010 will move forward, and onward. And Mr. Trump's efforts to kill it will. . . fail. G'night all. Off grid, essentially all day tomorrow.

नमस्ते

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