Mediaboss Marketing

Math is not the friend of the Republican Party.

As the GOP leadership fights to find the votes from Trumpcare, the bill that just wont die, the Congressional Budget Office issued two new scores for how Republican proposals would affect the health insurance system.

First, the government office confirmed that a bill to repeal Obamacare without replacing it the Obamacare Repeal Reconciliation Act of 2017, or ORRA would result in 32 million more people losing health insurance compared to the status quo, and a doubling of premiums for those lucky enough to retain insurance. Thats bad math. (Well, good math, but bad for the GOP.)

That forecast is so devastating in part because Republicans in pursuit of an Obamacare repeal have no choice but to use the reconciliation process, which requires only a simple majority rather than the usual 60 votes. (Democrats obviously wont sign on, in any number, to destroy President Obamas signature legislative achievement.) And because reconciliation bills can deal only with taxes and spending, the ORRA would eliminate the taxes and spending contained in the Affordable Care Act while leaving many of its regulations intact.

The result would be the worst of both worlds for insurers and the now-insured. Obamacares historic expansion of Medicaid would be eliminated, and so would the subsidies that make purchasing insurance on individual exchanges more affordable. But insurers still would be required to issue insurance regardless of preexisting conditions, and this insurance still would have to provide comprehensive coverage.

Guess what would come next? An almost-immediate death spiral: Effective premiums would skyrocket, which means that only the sick and desperate would maintain insurance while healthy people fled the market in droves, causing prices to increase even more. (You may have heard that the ACA is already in a death spiral, but this is simply false the existing exchanges have, for the most part, stabilized.)

In other words, the ORRA would devastate Medicaid and completely destroy the individual market for health insurance. Maybe the number of people who would lose coverage would be somewhat less than the CBOs projected 32 million, and maybe it would be even more, but its somewhere in that ballpark, and no logical analysis would conclude otherwise.

Although repeal-without-replace is the GOPs worst idea yet, the partys latest affirmative replacement plan isnt all that much better, as the CBO score issued Thursday makes clear. It would cut coverage by 22 million, raise premiums by 20% on average and cut Medicaid by $772 billion while giving the wealthy and corporations $541 billion in tax breaks. Deductibles would be an outright disaster; someone making $26,500 in 2026 would pay $13,000 or half his income compared with $800 under the ACA.

So its the same old, same old. The House bill that passed in May, as well as the Senates two proposals for remaking Obamacare, would all substantially cut the spending that helps people afford insurance on the individual markets. All of these schemes would lead to a huge increase in the number of uninsured. None contain any material benefit to anyone except wealthy taxpayers.

These bills were never going to be popular if scored accurately. Theres just no way to slash costs without slashing the insurance rolls. Thats simple math.

And that highlights the importance of the CBO. If Democrats and liberal commentators alone claimed that Republican legislation would lead to death spirals and all the rest, the media would cast it as a views differ or on the one hand, on the other hand issue. Reporters would repeat, without comment, ridiculous Republican assertions that massive cuts in healthcare spending wouldnt hurt anyone because The Market Is Magic and Innovation, etc. But the CBO has the authority to get the truth out there, and this has made the resistance to Trumpcare much more effective.

At this point, the Republican Party could grow up and get a heart. It could choose not to propose policies that take away important benefits from tens of millions of people to help only a few. It seems more likely, however, that Republicans will respond by undermining the CBO and perhaps stop using its analyses altogether. One party will continue living in the world of fact, while the other will enter the realm of pure fantasy.

Math is not the friend of the Republican Party, so the Republican Party is not the friend of math. The CBO is helping kill Trumpcare, but Trumpcare ultimately could kill the CBO.

Scott Lemieux is an instructor of political science at SUNY Albany and a regular contributor to the New Republic and the Week.

Experience Los Angeles 2049 at the Blade Runner 2049 Experience, only at Comic-Con.

Experience Los Angeles 2049 at the Blade Runner 2049 Experience, only at Comic-Con.

Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion or Facebook

See more here:
Math is not the friend of the Republican Party - Los Angeles Times

MSNBC

House Republican dismisses Trump as 'a distraction' MSNBC Donald Trump was sworn in as the nation's president exactly six months ago today, and it's not exactly a secret that his tenure has been burdened by a series of failures, scandals, and mistakes. At this point, the nation's first amateur president hasn ... Trump demands Republicans replace Obamacare before August recess, but McConnell is waryUSA TODAY all 11 news articles »

See the original post here:
House Republican dismisses Trump as 'a distraction' - MSNBC

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnellemployed an iron fist over the Republican health care effort, keeping top lieutenants in the dark about key decisions and withholding detailed policy information from the conference as a whole until just before it was released publicly.

Now with theseven-year effort to gut the 2010 health care law in tatters,it falls on the Kentucky Republican to deal with the aftermath, and quell concerns about whether he can continue to lead effectively.

With no clear direction forward, the rest of the ambitious GOP agenda remainsuncertain.

Republicans on Tuesday were largely noncommittal over what would come next, and several instead chose to continue to harp on the potential damage to the party if its long-held antipathy of the law does not yield measurable progress.

We have to have the confidence of the American people that we can get things done. There will be millions of people who see significantly higher premiums because we havent been able to come to a consensus on this particular issue, Sen. Mike Rounds of South Dakota said.

I continue to believe we can and will get this done, Texas Sen. Ted Cruzsaid. Every Republican for the last seven years has campaigned on repealing Obamacare. I think the credibility of the conference is seriously undermined if we fail to deliver on that promise.

Questions also linger over what impact McConnells strategy choosing to craft a bill largely behind closed doors and placing strict deadlines on his own members has had on the morale of the GOP conference.

Sen. Ron Johnson, for example, declined to say on Tuesday whether he still trusts McConnell following the health care failure, citing assurances the majority leader made to moderate lawmakers that the GOPs proposed cuts to Medicaid would never go into effect.

I was very troubled with those comments, the Wisconsin Republican said.

When asked whether McConnell is solely to blame for the failure, Johnson said, I dont know, who wrote the bill?

And while the Senate Republican Conference tries to recover from a monumental defeat on the health care effort,President Donald Trump vowed to move forward with his plan to let the health care law collapse.

I think were probably in that position where well let Obamacare fail, he said. Were not going to own it. Im not going to own it, he said, despite the GOP locking Democrats out of the process.

Following Tuesdaysweekly Republican policy luncheon, McConnell said the chamber would hold a vote sometime in the near future on legislation from 2015 to repeal the health care law that was vetoed by President Barack Obama. The majority leaderinformed senators Tuesday that, at the request of the president and vice president, the vote would take place early next week.

Its pretty clear that there are not 50 Republicans at the moment to vote for a replacement for Obamacare, he told reporters. This has been a very, very challenging experience for all of us.

But the vote on an initial procedural hurdle looks destined to fail. Three Republican senators have said they wouldnt support the motion to proceedthat would allowthe 2015 repeal legislation to come up for a vote, enough to block it.

What comes after that likely failure remains an open question, but McConnells top allies expect work to begin on a bipartisan health care bill.

I suspect there will be discussions on a bipartisan bill, Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn of Texas said. To me, thats unfortunate in a sense because I think the Democrats are strongly committed to Obamacare and are unwilling to admit the structural problems which create the problems we are having in the individual market today.

And while the conference continues to try to chart a path forward, skeptical lawmakers are holding back any direct criticism.

I dont want to ascribe blame to anyone, said Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, one of the three GOP senatorswho vowed to vote against the 2015 repeal bill. I have long held that a committee process allows for a way to go forward that, while not easy, does allow for, typically, a product that has gone through greater vetting.

Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Chairman Lamar Alexander, in a statement released on Tuesday, said his panel would soon turn to work on measures to shore up the insurance markets that have shown signs of turmoil.

However the votes come out on the health care bill, the Senate health committee has a responsibility during the next few weeks to hold hearings to continue exploring how to stabilize the individual market. I will consult with Senate leadership and then I will set those hearings after the Senate votes on the health care bill, the Tennessee Republican said.

Other members continue to try to push their respective proposals. Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy, for example, is still advocating for a bill he is working on alongside Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina that would essentially give states a bulk amount of funding each year to manage their insurance systems.

Obviously, leadership wants to know that there is an interest in this among everybody, so we are trying to develop that interest, Cassidysaid.

And despite a looming battle on the overhaul of the U.S. tax code that promises to be as difficult, if not more so, than the health care debate, Republican members are optimistic.

At the end of the day, what we have to do is cobble together the votes to move forward on other issues. The reality of it is this is a setback, but its not, in my opinion, an unexpected setback, South Carolina Sen. Tim Scottsaid.

Andrew Siddons and John T. Bennett contributed to this report.

Get breaking news alerts and more from Roll Call on your iPhone or your Android.

Link:
Senate Health Care Failure Prompts Republican Soul Searching - Roll Call

In the space of a few hours, Mr. Trump reluctantly agreed to preserve President Barack Obamas nuclear deal with Iran and failed in his effort to repeal Mr. Obamas health care program.

But Mr. Trump hasnt given up. He announced new sanctions on Iran and he called on Congress to simply repeal Mr. Obamas health care program without passing a replacement.

Well let Obamacare fail and then the Democrats are going to come to us, the president said at the White House.

_____

The Obama administration ordered Russian diplomats to leave two waterfront compounds in New York and Maryland. Now, Russia wants them back.

3. The White House acknowledged that President Trump and Vladimir Putin had an undisclosed private talk at the G-20 summit in Hamburg, but there is no U.S. government record of it. The unreported meeting raises new questions about their relationship.

Meanwhile, the eighth person who attended a June 2016 meeting with Donald Trump Jr. was identified as an emissary of a Russian oligarch.

Russia said its patience is wearing thin over two waterfront compounds that the Obama administration seized from Russian diplomats as punishment for Moscows meddling in last years presidential election. The video above explains it.

Sergey Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, had called the seizure robbery in broad daylight, and the Foreign Ministry on Tuesday said that Russia reserved the right to retaliate against the United States.

_____

4. China partly blocked WhatsApp in its ever-tightening grip over internet content.

The messaging app was the last of Facebooks major products that still worked in China. It appears to have fallen victim to an online crackdown fed by a perfect storm of politically sensitive news, important events and a new cybersecurity law that went into effect last month.

_____

5. It took global outcry, two rejections and President Trumps intervention for six teenage girls on an Afghan robotics team to get the U.S. visas to take part in a competition in Washington.

Theyre like superheroes, a competitor from Myanmar said.

_____

6. Texas lawmakers are gearing up for a special legislative session, where they are likely to decide the fate of a bill regulating the access of transgender people in public restrooms.

But theres more on the line the political future of Joe Straus, the speaker of the Texas House, who has put himself at odds with his fellow Republicans over his resistance to the bill. Mr. Straus is one of the states last moderate Republicans.

_____

7. My will to survive kicked in.

James Church was fishing off a jetty when he was struck by lightning in Florida, a state that has more lightning strikes and fatalities than any other state.

Here are four tales of survivors with disparate stories that all began with a bolt from the blue.

_____

8. Mountain roads provide an optimal vantage point to see a bicycle race in person, but theyre difficult to reach. The Tour de France has a longtime tradition of cycling fans camping out in the mountains for days, or even weeks, to claim a coveted place along the course.

The New York Times went up the mountainside of Mont du Chat to join them.

On the soccer field, the second-highest-ranking soccer official with FIFA was arrested and charged with corruption and embezzlement.

_____

9. Hello Kitty once represented the height of consumer culture, with everything from lunchboxes to hand-held mirrors adorned with the little girl character.

But the Japanese consumer goods brand Sanrio, which debuted the catlike cartoon with a hair bow in 1974, has introduced new characters that have a much more anticapitalist vibe.

One character, Aggretsuko (pronounced ah-GRET-su-KO), chugs beers and performs death metal karaoke as flames spark around her face.

_____

10. We wrap up the day in Norway with a new food movement: neo-Fjordic cuisine. Why would an ambitious chef open a restaurant in western Norway, where only 3 percent of the land is arable and the growing season is a blip?

The fjords are what make Norway different, the chef, Christopher Haatuft, said. Thats what I want my food to be.

Photographs may appear out of order for some readers. Viewing this version of the briefing should help.

Your Evening Briefing is posted at 6 p.m. Eastern.

And dont miss Your Morning Briefing, posted weekdays at 6 a.m. Eastern, and Your Weekend Briefing, posted at 6 a.m. Sundays.

Want to look back? Heres last nights briefing.

What did you like? What do you want to see here? Let us know at briefing@nytimes.com.

Excerpt from:
Republican Party, Texas, Donald Trump: Your Tuesday Evening Briefing - New York Times

In announcing his opposition to the bill, Mr. Moran said it fails to repeal the Affordable Care Act or address health cares rising costs.

Vice President Mike Pence, Speaker Paul D. Ryan and Senator Mitch McConnell, the majority leader, discuss the next steps.

There are serious problems with Obamacare, and my goal remains what it has been for a long time: to repeal and replace it, he said in a statement.

In his own statement, Mr. Lee said of the bill, In addition to not repealing all of the Obamacare taxes, it doesnt go far enough in lowering premiums for middle-class families; nor does it create enough free space from the most costly Obamacare regulations.

By defecting together, Mr. Moran and Mr. Lee ensured that no one senator would be the definitive no vote.

House Republicans, after their own fits and starts, passed a bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act in May, a difficult vote that was supposed to set the stage for Senate action. But with conservative and moderate Republicans so far apart in the Senate, the gulf proved impossible to bridge. Conservatives wanted the Affordable Care Act eradicated, but moderates worried intensely about the effects that would have on their most vulnerable citizens.

The Senate Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer of New York, responded to the announcement on Monday by urging his Republican colleagues to begin anew and, this time, undertake a bipartisan effort.

This second failure of Trumpcare is proof positive that the core of this bill is unworkable, Mr. Schumer said. Rather than repeating the same failed, partisan process yet again, Republicans should start from scratch and work with Democrats on a bill that lowers premiums, provides long-term stability to the markets and improves our health care system.

A comparison of public meetings on Obamacare and the Republican bills to repeal it.

Roughly 20 million people have gained coverage through the Affordable Care Act. Repealing the law was a top priority for Mr. Trump and Republicans in Congress, who say it has driven up premiums and forced consumers to buy insurance they do not want and cannot afford.

The opposition from Mr. Paul and Ms. Collins to the latest version of the Senate bill was expected, so Mr. McConnell had no margin for error as he unveiled it. But he managed to survive through the weekend and until Monday night without losing another of his members though some expressed misgivings or, at the very least, uncertainty.

Mr. McConnell had wanted to hold a vote this week, but he was forced to abandon that plan after Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, had surgery last week to remove a blood clot from above his left eye. That unexpected setback gave the forces that opposed the bill more time to pressure undecided senators.

Already, Mr. McConnell was trying to sell legislation that was being assailed from many directions. On Friday, the health insurance lobby, which had been largely silent during the fight, came off the sidelines to blast as unworkable a key provision allowing the sale of low-cost, stripped-down health plans, saying it would increase premiums and undermine protections for people with pre-existing medical conditions.

Mr. McConnell has now failed twice in recent weeks to roll out a repeal bill and keep his conference together for it. He first wanted to hold a vote in late June, only to reverse course after running into opposition.

House Republicans in competitive districts who supported their version of the bill will now have to explain themselves and Democrats are eager to pounce.

Make no mistake, Paul Ryan cant turn back time and undo the damaging vote he imposed on his conference, said Meredith Kelly, a spokeswoman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. House Republicans all own a bill that would strip health care from 23 million Americans and raise costs for millions more, and it will haunt them in 2018.

Mr. Lee, one of the most conservative members of the Senate, was part of a group of four conservative senators who came out against the initial version of Mr. McConnells bill after it was unveiled last month. He then championed the proposal to allow insurers to offer cheap, bare-bones plans, which was pushed by another of those opponents, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas. But the language ultimately added was not quite what Mr. Lee had been advocating, a spokesman said last week.

Mr. Moran, a reliable Republican vote and a past chairman of the Senate Republicans campaign arm, had announced his opposition to the bill as drafted after Mr. McConnell scrapped plans to hold a vote in late June. He expressed concerns about how it would affect Kansas, including whether it would limit access to health care in rural communities and effectively penalize states, like his, that did not expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act.

The pressure on Mr. Moran at home showed no sign of relenting. The Kansas Hospital Association said last week that the revised Senate bill comes up short, particularly for our most vulnerable patients.

Robert Pear contributed reporting.

Get politics and Washington news updates via Facebook, Twitter and in the Morning Briefing newsletter.

A version of this article appears in print on July 18, 2017, on Page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: 2 More Defections Lead To Collapse of Health Effort.

Read more here:
Health Care Overhaul Collapses as Two Republican Senators Defect - New York Times