GOP is not totally self-destructive

 

Hawley?!

PS How old is that picture of Susan Collins?  Murkowski, too.  And Rand Paul, come to think of it.  

UPDATE 06:06 pm:

More fallout

 

WTF is WRONG with these people?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Inching toward single payer, universal health care

(You can always click the graphics in YWA posts that have a link notation to read the articles.)

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Burn it all down

You could be forgiven for thinking he WANTS people to die.

Despite the decision, the ACA — better known as ObamaCare — provides for a special enrollment period for those who have recently lost their employer-based health plans, meaning some people who have lost their insurance due to the pandemic may still be able to sign up through the portal.

[...]

Those who have lost their jobs also have the option to extend their employer-based plans through the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act — also known as COBRA — but that option frequently proves cost-prohibitive for people who have just lost their main sources of income. About two-thirds of states have also expanded Medicaid under the ACA.

[...]

While the White House oversees enrollment for about two-thirds of states, several Democratic state governments have already reopened enrollment in state-run marketplaces, Politico reported. Trump said last week that he was considering reopening enrollment, but he affirmed that he still supports an ongoing administration lawsuit that would undo the entire law.

  The Hill

The Trump administration ignored a pandemic warning from White House economists who published a study estimating possible effects of a pandemic last September, according to a New York Times report.

The White House study reportedly cautioned that a pandemic, like the coronavirus outbreak the world is now facing, could cause the deaths of a half million Americans and cost the economy as much as $3.8 trillion. The study contradicts what administration officials have repeatedly said about the coronavirus coming out of nowhere and causing unforeseen devastation to the U.S. economy, the Times noted.

The 2019 study was ordered by the National Security Council, two people familiar with the matter told the newspaper, which added that it warned officials not to conflate the risks of the annual flu with a potential pandemic.

[...]

One of the authors of the study, who has since left the White House, estimated a majority of economic activity would need to be halted for two to eight months to slow down a potential virus, according to the Times.

The study, which did not predict the coronavirus specifically, modeled a pandemic involving a virus similar to the 1918 Spanish flu or the swine flu of 2009 hitting the country. The model flu in the study, however, was less contagious and less deadly than public health officials say the coronavirus could be.

  The Hill

On a roll; going for ACA

The Trump administration’s surprise decision to press for a court-ordered demolition of the Affordable Care Act came after a heated meeting in the Oval Office on Monday, where his acting chief of staff and others convinced President Trump that he could do through the courts what he could not do through Congress: Repeal his predecessor’s signature achievement.

  NYT

He might have to go all the way to Kavanaugh.

Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff and former South Carolina congressman, had spent years in the House saying that the health law should be repealed, and his handpicked head of the Domestic Policy Council, Joe Grogan, supported the idea of joining a Republican attorneys general lawsuit to invalidate the entire Affordable Care Act.

That suit, and the Justice Department, initially pressed to nullify only the part of the law that forces insurance companies to cover people with pre-existing medical conditions as well as a suite of health benefits deemed “essential,” such as pregnancy and maternal health, mental health and prescription drugs.

But a district judge in Texas ruled that the entire law was rendered unconstitutional when Mr. Trump’s tax law brought the tax penalty for not having health insurance to zero, and the administration faced a choice: Stick with its more limited intervention or back the judge’s decision.

[...]

Mr. Mulvaney and Mr. Grogan argued [that Trump] campaigned on repealing the health law. His base of voters would love it. Besides, they argued, Democrats have been campaigning successfully on health care, and Republicans should try to take it over themselves.

[...]

Among those with concerns was Pat Cipollone, the White House counsel, who shared that it was opposed by the new attorney general, William P. Barr. Vice President Mike Pence was concerned about the political ramifications of moving ahead without a strategy or a plan to handle the suddenly uninsured if the suit succeeds.

Concerned Mike is no doubt easily ignored.

That meeting was followed by a smaller one, where Mr. Mulvaney and Mr. Cipollone were among those voicing different opinions. But Mr. Trump had been sold, and on Monday night, the Justice Department issued a statement saying it supports the Texas judge’s decision.

On Wednesday, Mr. Trump doubled down on his support for the Texas suit while talking to reporters in the Oval Office.

“If the Supreme Court rules that Obamacare is out, we’ll have a plan that is far better than Obamacare,” he said.

And no one asked him what that plan is.

Mr. Barr did not favor the move but did not object to the White House decision once it had been made, people familiar with what took place said. And one White House official said that the administration faced a deadline imposed by the court if it wanted to support the suit.

[...]

Mr. Trump did not seem to care about shifting the political focus toward an issue that Democrats far preferred to the aftermath of the Mueller report.

[...]

Mr. Mueller, according to a letter by Mr. Barr, found no evidence of criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and the Russian government.

People keep saying that. And that's not even what Barr said.

"As the report states: "[T]he investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities."

That does not say there was no evidence.

But Republicans in Congress have no obvious road forward on legislation to replace the Affordable Care Act that could pass the Democrat-controlled House. And House leaders have little political incentive to bow to Republican wishes on health care, an issue that they believe delivered their House majority and that they are eager to campaign on in 2020.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

You can't keep up - Part 2

Over the past 24 hours, Republican officials have watched in horror as the Trump administration once again fully embraced the repeal of Obamacare, just over a year after the issue proved toxic for the party at the ballot box.

The embrace came in two steps: with the Department of Justice siding with a lower court ruling that declared the health care law invalid in toto and with the president tweeting that the Republican Party would become the party of health care reform.

  Daily Beast

Actually, he said "the party of health care." Or "healthcare" to be precise.

[I]t quickly complicated what was widely viewed as one of the best weeks of Trump’s presidency. Ebullient over a four-page summarization of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russia’s meddling—a summarization that said the president was not guilty of collusion—Trump suddenly found himself back in a debate that has vexed his administration.

[...]

GOP officials couldn’t help but marvel at Trump’s inability to enjoy a rare grace period. “They are completely tone deaf,” texted one of the party’s top strategists. “How bout a few more victory laps on Mueller while you can get away with it? WTF is wrong with them?”

Mental.

“And there’s something unusual about him stepping on a good message?” one former administration official said, laughing when asked about the timing of the announcement.

[...]

On Monday evening, DoJ announced that its support for U.S. District Court Judge Reed O’Connor’s ruling that because Obamacare’s individual mandate had been zeroed out, the entirety of the law was now constitutionally illegitimate. O’Connor’s judgement had been widely panned in legal circles.

[...]

[T]he department’s new position set off alarm bells among Republicans who had spent much of the 2018 election cycle trying to alleviate voter concerns that their attempts at health care overhaul would—contrary to the likely outcomes—leave those with preexisting conditions vulnerable to the whims of private insurers.

[...]

One of the party’s top pollsters told The Daily Beast that private data showed that the issue of health care had likely cost Republicans more than a dozen seats in the House in 2018.

[...]

Trump did little to alleviate the anxiety later on Tuesday, when he addressed Senate Republicans and reiterated his desire to tackle health care reform again but, according to several senators, didn’t offer any specifics.

Trump without details? THAT's shocking.

“I don’t think you can really rethink health care until you know for sure whether Obamacare continues to be part of it or not,” [Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO)] said, “and I think we’re ahead of ourselves to assume that the court would say that Obamacare is somehow no longer there.”

[...]

Should Republicans actually try again to pass Obamacare repeal legislation, they will do so in a decidedly more difficult political landscape than the one they enjoyed just two years ago. Any bill would have to make its way through a Democratic-run House, where many new lawmakers were elected not only on a pledge to protect Obamacare’s protections for those with pre-existing conditions and its expansion of Medicaid coverage, but on a promise to pursue even more aggressive reforms, such as additional government run insurance options or the widening of Medicare eligibility.

We all know the Republicans can't win if they don't cheat, so I'm expecting some serious cheating in 2020.

Those close to the president say that part of what motivates him on continuing his pursuit in scrapping the Affordable Care Act, even after past failures, is his inability to move beyond setbacks.

That, and it's called "Obamacare".

Plus, he thinks he gained a lot of political capital with the Mueller report. With Bill Barr's interpretation of the Mueller report. So he's ready to take on the impossible.

“It doesn’t surprise me because this president is a hyperbole in action every day, so if there’s an opportunity to end the whole Obamacare, ACA, regardless of the consequences of doing that, he’s fine,” said the former administration official. “Though, it speaks to the lack of anybody within the administration pushing back, and it gets fewer and fewer and fewer individuals who will speak with responsibility.”

Probably because he either fires them or refuses to listen.  He's unfit. 

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

You can't keep up; don't bother trying

Since they utterly failed to do it when they had both houses of Congress, this does seem like it's fated to fail.  Not to mention give the Dems a great peg to hang their 2020 hats on.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

He thinks he's on a winning streak

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

More first orders of business

It won't pass this time, but it's good they're starting to peck away at this horrible legislation.



Read about it.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Jumping the gun

A federal judge in Texas on Friday struck down the Affordable Care Act, throwing a new round of uncertainty into the fate of the law just one day before the deadline to sign up for coverage for next year.

U.S. District Court Judge Reed O'Connor ruled that the law's individual mandate is unconstitutional, and that because the mandate cannot be separated from the rest of the law, the rest of the law is also invalid.

The ruling is certain to be appealed, and legal experts in both parties have said they ultimately expect the challenge to the health law will not succeed. ObamaCare will remain in effect while the case is appealed.

  The Hill

I, myself, object to the individual mandate, and the fact that it was pretty much written by insurance companies and is now costing people twice as much as it did upon enactment, but His Lardship is apparently unaware of yet another legal issue: that the law is in effect while being appealed. He'll just have to wait until it gets to the Supreme Court which the GOP and he have gerrymandered to proclaim its death.

Single payer, universal health care, and then, free health care to all citizens.  Don't come at me with we can't afford it.  We can.  Start here:

A Pentagon agency has lost track of hundreds of millions of dollars, according to an internal audit, which is a troubling sign for the military’s ability to oversee its massive $700 billion budget.

The audit, conducted by Ernst and Young and first reported by Politico, discovered the Defense Logistics Agency could not account for roughly $800 million in construction projects and had no documentation to show for it.

  Newsweek

And then revoke the money already allotted for a useless border wall.

And then reinstate fair and reasonable tax rates for corporations and plug offshore loopholes.

We can afford health care for everyone.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Missouri's Josh Hawley is running a lot of TV ads right now

Trump, and Hawley, are repeating the latest Republican midterm bullshit: We'll protect your pre-existing conditions. Drill down a bit.

Hawley has an ad going now that plays on a "rare chronic disease - a pre-existing condition" that his small child has.  He says he supports "forcing insuance companies to cover ALL pre-existing conditions."

The Republican position [on health insurance] is widely abhorred; a recent Kaiser Family Foundation poll showed that 75 percent of Americans, including a majority of Republicans, say it’s “very important” to them that the protections [for pre-existing conditions] remain in place. The issue also lends itself well to emotional stories about people struggling with illness who would be bankrupted or worse if they didn’t have the protection, stories that can be fit into 30-second ads such as this one from [incumbent Democratic Missouri Senatory Claire] McCaskill. So Republicans are responding by insisting that they too want to protect preexisting conditions.

[...]

[A]n estimated 130 million Americans, or about half of those too young to qualify for Medicare, have preexisting conditions. And, until just a few years ago, with the implementation of the Affordable Care Act, having one meant that insurance companies could deny you coverage or only offer it to you with premiums so astronomical, no ordinary people could afford them. They even did a thing called “rescission,” a situation in which you would either have an accident or get sick, and your insurer would then comb through your history and find an excuse — hey, you never told us you got treated for acne eight years ago! — to retroactively cancel your policy and leave you in the cold at the moment you most need the coverage you’ve been paying for.

That was outlawed by the ACA, as were denials for preexisting conditions. So we have that measure of health security now, and it’ll stay that way thanks to caring Republicans such as Josh Hawley. Right?

If you suspect the answer to that question is “Actually, no,” give yourself a pat on the back. Because Hawley, the attorney general of Missouri, is one of a group of Republican officials who filed suit to have the entire ACA struck down. If the suit succeeds, insurers will once again be able to deny anyone a policy because of a preexisting condition, and charge as much as they like.

Republicans have never lacked for chutzpah, which is what it takes to file a lawsuit intended to take away protections for preexisting conditions, and then run a soft-focus ad about how committed you are to protecting those with preexisting conditions. Hawley’s position is that he actually wants to take away those protections now, but give them back later with some future piece of legislation — one that does all the things about the ACA you like, but none of the things you don’t.

[...]

[T]his is happening all over. Despite all the attention we pay to the Russia scandal, Brett M. Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination and President Trump’s tweets, health care has been the dominant issue on the campaign trail; half of all the ads aired by Democrats have included it.

[...]

Something similar is happening on the Affordable Care Act’s expansion of Medicaid: Republicans who used to oppose it are now softening their opposition, especially when they’re running for governor and their Democratic opponents start talking about all the residents of their state whose insurance Republicans want to take away.

[...]

[Hawley's ad is] not just ridiculously dishonest; it shows the complete vacuum where Republican policy ideas are supposed to be. The GOP has been saying it wants to “repeal and replace” the ACA since 2010, yet, in all that time, it couldn’t be bothered to come up with the “replace” part, other than a perfunctory bill slapped together here or there so it could say it supported something. When it tried and failed to repeal the law after taking control of Congress and the White House last year, it once again turned to the courts, in the form of the lawsuit filed by Hawley and others.

  WaPo

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

All the best people...

...leave.

Joel McElvain, who has worked at the Justice Department for more than 20 years, submitted his resignation letter Friday, the morning after Attorney General Jeff Sessions notified Congress that the agency will not defend the ACA — the 2010 law known as Obamacare — against lawsuits brought by Republican-led states challenging its requirement that most Americans carry health insurance.

[...]

Several colleagues said McElvain was in line to become director of the Justice Department’s federal programs branch, which handles complex government policy questions pending before the courts. It is not known for its politics but for the tenacity with which its lawyers defend the law — any law — passed by Congress.

[...]

The Justice Department’s decision last week reversed years of legal work McElvain and the Justice Department had performed on the issue.

McElvain and his team were honored in 2013 with the Attorney General’s Award for exceptional service defending the legislation in court. A Justice Department spokeswoman confirmed his resignation takes effect in early July. McElvain declined to comment.

  WaPo

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Short-sighted Trump admin moves

[A lawsuit] filed today by Attorney General Schneiderman and Minnesota Attorney General Lori Swanson in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, details how the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) – without adequate justification and in disregard of lawful procedure – withheld legally-required funding owed to New York and Minnesota to operate their BHPs. New York and Minnesota are the only states that operate BHPs [ Basic Health Programs], which collectively provide health insurance coverage to over 800,000 residents.

“The Essential Plan is a lifeline for over 700,000 low-income New Yorkers. The abrupt decision to cut these vital funds is a cruel and reckless assault on New York’s families – and we will not allow it,” said Attorney General Schneiderman. “I won’t stand by as the federal government continues to renege on its most basic obligations in a transparent attempt to dismantle the Affordable Care Act. We’re suing to defend these vital funds and the quality, affordable health care they ensure for New Yorkers.”

  New York AG

Who will do the menial labor and shit work after this administration has knocked off all the poor people and immigrants?

New York’s Essential Plan is extremely successful, with the vast majority of eligible individuals choosing to participate due to the low costs of coverage and generous benefits. Depending on income, some enrollees do not pay any premiums, while others pay at most $20 per month; there is no deductible, and the plan covers preventive care without cost sharing – providing access to critical health care for low-income New Yorkers.

Health care for all is not only achievable, it's a necessity.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

What? No tweets?

A new Gallup survey released Friday shows a marked uptick in the number of Americans without health insurance [from 10.9 percent to 12.3 percent, with roughly 3.5 million more Americans uninsured] since the Trump administration took office—a reversal after years of decline and a historic record low under the Obama administration.

  TPM

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Business as usual

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

And They Voted for Him

Just looking at that picture - how could they?

A key provision of the Affordable Care Act made more than a dozen preventative care services available free of charge for people covered by health insurance—from primary care checkups to vaccines to diabetes screenings. The only service targeted by the Trump rule change is coverage of contraception.

[...]

The Wall Street Journal reported this week that the rule will be very similar to a draft version leaked in May, which would vastly expand the number and types of businesses eligible for an exemption from Obamacare’s rule requiring all employers to provide insurance coverage of all contraceptive methods without co-pays. If enacted as drafted, it would allow not only religious groups but thousands of non-profits and for-profit businesses to leave birth control out of their employees’ insurance altogether.

[...]

“This raises a couple of constitutional issues, including sex discrimination, because they’re singling out care that only women need,” explained Brigitte Amiri, a staff attorney with the ACLU. “They are not targeting other kinds of preventative care, and they’re taking away a benefit that’s otherwise guaranteed by law. Additionally, they’re targeting something, contraception, that allows women to achieve equality in society.”

  TPM

MAGA, eh?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

GOP Determined to Be White Supremacists Without the Label

After the collapse of Obamacare repeal in Congress, which would have cut hundreds of billions of dollars and millions of people from Medicaid–the public health insurance program for the poor–red states and their allies in the Trump administration are preparing to use a powerful administrative tool as a backdoor route to that same goal.

Over the past few months, after Trump’s HHS signaled openness to granting these Medicaid waivers, nearly a dozen Republican-controlled states have submitted or are preparing to submit requests that they openly acknowledge will lead to fewer people being covered as a result. In those so-called waiver requests, some states are seeking to impose work requirements and drug tests on the low-income population that depends on Medicaid, while others are proposing cuts in coverage for vision, dental care, and non-emergency medical transportation, lifetime limits, defunding of women’s health clinics, and requiring people below the federal poverty line to pay insurance premiums.
  TPM

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:

A new CBS News poll finds that only 34 percent of Americans approve of Trump’s response to Charlottesville, while 55 percent disapprove. Only 35 percent say his description of the events is accurate; 55 percent disagree.

But among Republicans, 67 percent approve of Trump’s response, and 68 percent say he’s describing events accurately. So, while the American people are broadly rejecting Trump’s handling of the violence, Trump and Bannon may be right that it is rallying Republicans behind him, never mind what it is doing to the rest of the country.

  WaPo

Good Morning, How Did You Sleep?

So now, it's not just Congress, it's Mitch McConnell personally who's responsible for the failure of Obamacare repeal.  He should have been working harder while the Rump was golfing.

via GIPHY

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

The Convoluted Case of Obamacare Payments to Insurers

The Huffington Post has published a clear, concise and very helpful article on where the Trump administration and GOP efforts to sabotage the Affordable Care Act stand.

Check it out.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.