Trump Demands House Vote, If It Fails Obamacare Stays
Update: President Trump has had enough negotiating and put out an ultimatum saying the Republicans need to vote on Friday, March 24th. He says if the vote fails he will leave Obamacare in place and move on to other issues. At this time, the night before the vote, the best guess is there are three dozen Freedom Caucus members opposed, and one dozen centrist Republicans opposed from The Tuesday Group. If 22 vote against the Republican’s American Health Care Act (AHCA), the bill will be defeated. In addition, the CBO came out with a second score based on revisions to the initial proposal. There was no change in the number of uninsured but there was an increase in spending by $150 billion over ten years. Tomorrow, the Rules for the vote will be at 9 AM and the vote in the afternoon.
Inability of Republicans to Develop Workable Health Plan Shows Failure of Market-Approach to Healthcare
The Republican Party is finding out you cannot solve the US healthcare crisis with an insurance-based market approach. Healthcare is a human necessity and can only be solved by recognizing health should be treated as a public good and not a commodity. The Republicans want to lower the cost of insurance but are finding that to do so they must not provide the essential services people need for good healthcare. The contradiction of profit and the essential human need for healthcare is becoming more evident.
The Affordable Care Act had the same contradiction, just not as pronounced because the Obama approach was to require the insurance industry to include essential health services and then to give them more than $150 billion annually to lower the premiums for people while forcing people to buy health insurance. But, the ACA has resulted in rising premiums, increasing deductibles and rising out-of-pocket costs as well as narrow networks with skimpy coverage. The result is while people pay more to the insurance industry many are unable to afford essential healthcare.
The ACA has resulted in 29 million people without any health insurance and tens of millions more without adequate insurance. The Republican plan, the American Health Care Act (AHCA), will dramatically increase those numbers, almost doubling them. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released its evaluation of the AHCA on March 13, 2017 finding the AHCA will create 14 million newly-uninsured in 2018 by ending the individual mandate forcing people to either buy private health insurance or pay a penalty. In 2020, when cuts to both Medicaid and the subsidies to purchase private insurance kick in, the newly uninsured would rise by 21 million. In 2026, the total number of people estimated to be without insurance in the US would be 52 to 54 million (the latter figure comes from the White House’s analysis).
No doubt constituent pressure at town halls and protests in the streets as well as emails and phone calls have made a difference. And, a new Quinnipiac University poll out Thursday found that only 17 percent of voters currently approve of the AHCA, while 56 disapprove and 26 percent remain undecided. Passing a poor healthcare law has high political costs. The Democrats lost their majority in the House after the passage of the ACA, now the Republicans are a risk by putting in place an even worse healthcare law. The poll also found that 46 percent said they would be less likely to vote for a lawmaker who votes to replace the Affordable Care Act with the Republican plan. Both parties ignore what the public wants — 58 percent of the people want National Improved Medicare for All, that is a super-majority of people in the United States. In fact, 73 percent of Democrats favor replacing the ACA with a federally funded national health insurance and even 41 percent of Republicans agree.
The crisis in US healthcare continues. More than 30,000 people are dying each year under the ACA because of lack of insurance or under-insurance, but if the Republican plan is put in place more than 43,000 will die annually. Both parties are putting a price tag on life, and by favoring the profits of their donors from the insurance and pharmaceutical industries as well as Wall Street investors in for-profit healthcare, they are literally killing tens of thousands people each year in the United States.
What you can do:
1. Urge your member of Congress to co-sponsor the Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act, HR 676. There are now 72 co-sponsors, this article lists them all as well as the Progressive Caucus members who have not signed on. If your Congress is a co-sponsor urge them to do more, e.g. write about improved Medicare for all, speak about it, get more members of Congress to sign on and do all they can to put this issue on the political agenda.
2. Urge your senators to introduce a companion bill for HR 676 in the senate. Our campaign Health Over Profit for Everyone (HOPE) is urging people to call Senator Sanders and urge him to introduce a companion bill and if the Republican bill get through the House and comes to the Senate, we are urging Sanders to introduce a substitution amendment, where expanded and improved Medicare for all will replace the AHCA. Take action here.
Below is Margaret Flowers’ reaction to the news that the Republicans could not reach an agreement on voting for their alternative to the ACA today.