After a few days of wonderful California weather and Golden State hospitality its back to work.
There’s been so much coming out of DC on all manner of topics healthcare has been somewhat under-covered. No worries – I got this.
Quick take is Senate Republicans are no closer to a repeal today than they were a month ago. In fact, the “repeal clock” has moved backwards over that time as key Senate Rs have realized repeal is fraught with political landmines.
This bubbled up publicly when Sen Alexander, Chair of Senate HELP Committee and Sen Hatch got into a disagreement over Hatch’s push to repeal the tax provisions of ACA now, then work on a replacement later.
Hatch’s move would have effectively forced many insurers to drop their insureds’ coverage this year, as without premium support low-income insureds would have no funds to cover their share of the premiums deductibles, etc. Insurers would be faced with the need to either a) come up with the money themselves or b) drop out of coverage leaving insureds without coverage.
Alexander’s position was strengthened yesterday by multiple announcements from big insurers about likely withdrawals from the individual markets, as well as news that both the Senate and the House have scaled back plans to do a big bill to repeal and replace ACA.
What does this mean for you?
ACA Repeal is NOT a done deal.
Doesn’t hurt that scores of people showed up at their Senator’s and Representative’s offices to ask about their positions and plans for the ACA. Just yesterday, Congressman Peter Roskam of Illinois refused to meet with a group of constituents who had a scheduled meeting with him to discuss his views of the ACA repeal and replace because they showed up in a greater number with a reporter. He refused to meet even with the original group of 8 without the reporter. Sounds like he was afraid of his own constituents.
I’m disappointed that Frederick Douglass hasn’t weighed in on this yet.