TrumpCare Is Back-- And Ready To Fail Again!

TrumpCare-- basically repealing the Affordable Care Act-- may actually pass the Senate this time. They have 'til the end of the month-- because that's when the 50 vote reconciliation window closes-- and this time it's called Graham-Cassidy, written by a quartet of senatorial fools, Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Bill Cassidy (R-LA), Dean Heller (R-NV) and Ron Johnson (R-WI). They claim to have 49 votes in the bag-- with Susan Collins (R-ME), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Rand Paul (R-KY) opposed. Paul, who is easily pressured (or bribed) is not a reliable "no" vote.

Amazing that they're trying this again after polling has been consistent that incumbents who back repeal with be subject to this statistic: 46% of voters say that if their representative or senator votes for repeal they will be more likely to vote against them. Only 25% say they would be more likely to vote for them. These are a half dozen of the worst things Graham-Cassidy is trying to accomplish:

• Takes insurance coverage from 32 million Americans over a 10 year period
• Ends Medicaid expansion
• Ends all subsidies for ACA exchanges, replacing them with small and inadequate (and declining) "block grants"
• Cuts coverage for low income seniors, children and people with disabilities and institutes a "per capita lifetime cap."
• Gives insurance companies permission to stop insuring people with pre-existing conditions
• Ends funding for Planned Parenthood

The bill has yet to be scored by the CBO but the Center of Budget and Policy Priorities has analyzed it carefully and concluded that it would have the same harmful consequences as all the other TrumpCare bills that have come up this year. "It would cause many millions of people to lose coverage, radically restructure and deeply cut Medicaid, and increase out-of-pocket costs for individual market consumers. Cassidy-Graham would:

• Eliminate the ACA’s marketplace subsidies and enhanced matching rate for the Medicaid expansion and replace them with an inadequate block grant. Block grant funding would be well below current law federal funding for coverage, would not adjust based on need, would disappear altogether after 2026, and could be spent on virtually any health care purpose, with no requirement to offer low- and moderate-income people coverage or financial assistance.

• Convert Medicaid’s current federal-state financial partnership to a per capita cap, which would cap and cut federal Medicaid per-beneficiary funding for seniors, people with disabilities, and families with children.

• Destabilize the individual insurance market in the short run-- by eliminating federal subsidies to purchase individual market coverage and eliminating the ACA’s individual mandate to have insurance or pay a penalty-- and in the long run. After 2026, once the bill’s block grant funding ends, it would amount to repeal of the ACA’s major coverage provisions with no replacement-- an approach that the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated would cause 32 million people to lose coverage and lead individual markets to collapse in most of the country.

Approximately 80 billion dollars is cut out of the nation's healthcare. It's interesting to watch which states are hurt and which states benefit. Naturally, blue states are immediately targeted-- the states the pay the highest taxes to subsidize the poorest states that can't afford healthcare for their Trump-voting, prescription drug-using residents. These 10 are the ones whose citizens would be left reeling. They Except for Massachusetts each one has vulnerable Republican House members who will get slaughtered if they vote for it in the House.

• California -$27,823,000,000 (2 Democratic senators)
• New York -$18,905,000,000 (2 Democratic senators)
• Massachusetts -$5,089,000,000 (2 Democratic senators)
• New Jersey -$3,904,000,000 (2 Democratic senators)
• Oregon- -$3,641,000,000 (2 Democratic senators)
• Washington -$3,333,000,000 (2 Democratic senators)
• Louisiana -$3,220,000,000 (only Cassidy could be this clueless)
• Kentucky -$3,062,000,000 (see Rand Paul's opposition)
• Michigan -$3,041,000,000 (2 Democratic senators)
• Minnesota -$2,747,000,000 (2 Democratic senators)

And these are the 10 states which make out the best, states where federal healthcare money actually increases, all dependably red:

• Texas +$8,234,000,000 (2 GOP senators)
• Alabama +$1,713,000,000 (2 GOP senators)
• Georgia +$1,685,000,000 (2 GOP senators)
• Tennessee +$1,642,000,000 (2 GOP seantors)
• Mississippi +$1,441,000,000 (2 GOP senators)
• Oklahoma +$1,118,000,000 (2 GOP senators)
• Kansas +$821,000,000 (2 GOP senators)
• South Carolina +804,000,000 (Take a bow Miss Lindsey)
• Missouri +$545,000,000
• Utah +$313,000,000 (2 GOP senators)

If Rand Paul changes his mind and supports it, McCain could just as likely change his position and kill it. And West Virgina stand to lose pretty big so it's likely that Shelley Moore Capito will be a no vote unless special arrangements are made for her state. If I had to guess right now, I'd say they'll be close but won't pass it in the Senate. If it does, it would be hard to imagine Republican congressmembers in the states that are hit hardest going along with this. The bill would be politically toxic for Republicans like Ryan Costello (PA), Dan Donovan (NY), Brian Fitzpatrick (PA), Jaime Herrera Beutler (WA), John Katko (NY), Leonard Lance (NJ), Frank LoBiondo (NJ), Mike Coffman (R-CO), Patrick Meehan (PA) and Chris Smith (NJ), who all voted NO. And Charlie Dent (PA), Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (FL) and Dave Reichert (WA), who were also opposed last time, have no incentive to vote for this one. On top of that, Congressmembers like Darrell Issa (R-CA), Mimi Walters (R-CA), Jeff Denham (R-CA), David Valadao (R-CA), Steve Knight (R-CA), Ed Royce (R-CA), John Faso (R-NY), Elise Stefanik (R-NY), Tom Reed (R-NY), Claudia Tenney (R-NY), Peter King (R-NY), Lee Zeldin (R-NY), Peter Roskam (R-IL), Rodney Davis (R-IL), Bruce Poliquin (R-ME), Fred Upton (R-MI), Mike Bishop (R-MI), Jason Lewis (R-MN), Erik Paulsen (R-MN), Steve Pearce (R-NM), Frelinghuysen Rodney (R-NJ) and maybe even Duncan Hunter (R-CA), Devin Nunes (R-CA), Randy Hultgren (R-IL), Lloyd Smucker (R-PA) would all be, in effect, signing a mutual suicide pact, politically speaking, if they voted for this in the House.

Last week, Lee Fang reported that Brent Saunders, the CEO of Allergan, one of the largest pharmaceutical firms in the world, is concerned that in an era of increasing political polarization, Americans will become fed up and embrace Medicare-For-All.

Americans have lost trust in drug companies, Saunders said, noting the industry consistently ranks lower than oil and tobacco companies in public trust surveys.

“I think we’ve got to do things to bring that trust back,” the executive added, “because ultimately, someone’s going to be in the White House. Somebody’s going to be in Congress. Someone’s going to be somewhere and going to have to say, ‘Enough’s enough. Let’s just change the whole system. Let’s go to one payer. Let’s do something.'”

While single payer has been discarded as a fringe, far-left idea over recent generations, the policy proposal has gained new traction in the wake of the 2016 presidential election. Many in the Democratic Party are drifting to the ideas of Sanders and other progressives who have long advocated for expanding coverage by providing Medicare to all Americans.

...During his speech, Saunders touted a statement of principles he released in 2016 calling for a “social contract” with patients, promising not to use predatory pricing and other behaviors that have come to define his industry.

How has that worked out? The drug companies-- including Allergen-- are more predatory than ever... and more hated by the public. Medicare-For-All is gaining traction precisely because of their policies and practices.