Perspectives On GOP Health Bill: ‘Laying A Strong Foundation’; Need For Compromise; A Debacle
Opinion writers across the country pick apart the health care debate that is roaring on Capitol Hill.
USA Today:
Health Care Relief
This week, House Republicans are taking significant steps to repeal and replace Obamacare. Known as the American Health Care Act, our fiscally responsible legislation will accomplish two urgent priorities: Providing Americans with immediate relief from the failing law. Laying a strong foundation for a 21st century health care system based on what patients and families need, not what Washington dictates. (Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Texas), 3/8)
The Wall Street Journal:
What Are The GOP Alternatives?
Progressives are lining up to assail the GOP’s health-care bill, though many on the political right seem to be even more unhappy. A little internal division is inevitable in any reform campaign worth fighting for, but the alternative strategies these conservative critics are suggesting are less than persuasive. To repeal and replace ObamaCare, Republicans must manage a mix of policy, political and procedural variables that are more complicated than usual. Compromises are necessary to earn 218 votes in the House and then a simple majority among the 52-member Senate GOP conference under the budget reconciliation process, which can bypass the filibuster but limits the scope of what the bill can contain. Call it the art of the deal. (3/8)
Kansas City Star:
Health Care Compromise Still Possible
After their bill collapses under the weight of opposition from the left and right, the party should re-draft a measure removing the worst features of Obamacare while enhancing the rest. That means the GOP must drop the weird, tangential parts of its new bill: the clause renewing the tax break for insurance company CEOs earning more than $500,000, for example. Allowing states to remove lottery winners from Medicaid may be a worthy goal, but it’s hardly a major priority. (3/8)
The Washington Post:
How The Republican Health Care Debacle Is Making Everyone’s Values Clear
With the release of the House leadership’s plan to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, Republicans suddenly find themselves having to answer a lot of questions about health care, which they’re not exactly comfortable doing. In the process, they’re revealing something important: not so much the details of their plan, but the values that underlie it. Those values, and the clash between the different ones different players in this issue hold, will determine whether compromises can be reached or whether the whole thing goes down in flames. (Paul Waldman, 3/8)
The Wall Street Journal:
The Beginning Of ObamaCare’s End
The House GOP’s bill to reform health care is hardly a surprise: Its key elements were part of the “Better Way” agenda championed last year by Speaker Paul Ryan. Republican lawmakers discussed the principles in several special conference meetings. The legislation was then written from the bottom up by the appropriate committees instead of being imposed from the top down. (Karl Rove, 3/8)
Huffington Post:
GOP Rushes Forward With Its Health Care Bill
The rapid pace of action, with committee markup less than two days after GOP leaders first allowed the public to see the bill, comes amid growing discontent over the legislation. Democrats uniformly oppose Affordable Care Act repeal and the proposed GOP “replacement.” But Republican leaders face bigger problems in the forms of a conservative revolt against their plan, as well as public opposition from the American Medical Association, the American Hospital Association, AARP and other organizations. (Jonathan Cohn and Jeffrey Young, 3/8)
Forbes:
Republican Stalemate Will Test Whether Obamacare Is Indeed Collapsing
"Obamacare is collapsing, and we must act decisively to protect all Americans," President Donald Trump has said. We may be about to conduct an involuntary experiment testing whether that's true. Republican plan to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act appears to have thus far attracted insufficient support from the more conservative wing of the Republican party. The conservative wing likely lacks the support among Democrats or more moderate Republicans to actually vote to repeal Obamacare when doing so would have more than symbolic importance. The result may be "Stalemate+," in which there are mild administrative reforms of the ACA, but in which nothing fundamental occurs. If so, we'll see if supporters of the ACA are right that the bill is just suffering from a "head cold" or whether, as President Trump, House Speaker Paul Ryan and others believe, it has Stage 4 cancer. (Seth Chandler, 3/9)
Forbes:
GOP's Obamacare Replacement Will Make Coverage Unaffordable For Millions -- Otherwise, It's Great
That’s not an ironic headline. Leading House Republicans have included a number of transformative and consequential reforms in their American Health Care Act, the full text of which was published Monday evening. But those reforms are overshadowed by the bill’s stubborn desire to make health insurance unaffordable for millions of Americans, and trap millions more in poverty. Can such a bill garner the near-universal Republican support it will need to pass Congress? (Avik Roy, 3/7)
Bloomberg:
Health-Care Politics Now Favors The Democrats
Not everyone hates Paul Ryan’s new health-care bill. Sure, conservative policy wonks, pretty much across the board, hate it. Right-wing agitators like Heritage Action hate it. Donor tax-cut advocates like the Club for Growth hate it. And conservative purists -- that courageous breed that eschews tainted compromise with dull reality -- hate it. Naturally, liberals hate it, as do people with serious health problems who depend on reliable health insurance. Yet a Democratic leadership aide was far less unkind. Asked purely about the bill’s political merits, he said Democrats, policy consequences aside, would be delighted to see Republican House members casting votes in favor of it, which he likened to walking a plank. (Francis Wilkinson, 3/8)
The Washington Post:
Republicans Wave A White Flag On Health Care
Democrats denouncing the new House GOP health-care bill should actually be dancing in the streets. Perhaps, in the privacy of their own homes, the savvier ones are popping the champagne corks. The true meaning of the proposed legislation is that, after eight years of all-out political and ideological struggle against Obamacare, Republicans have surrendered — pretty much on all fronts. House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) should have written the bill on a large white tablecloth and run it up the nearest flagpole. (Charles Lane, 3/8)
Bloomberg:
Health Insurers Need To Unite Against Trumpcare
Insurers do get a huge tax cut in the GOP plan, in the range of $145 billion over a decade. The bill would make more of their executive compensation deductible. They will be able to charge older people more for insurance, and offer less-expensive plans that may bring younger Americans into insurance markets. In the future they may be able to offer leaner and more flexible plans than they can under the Affordable Care Act. Insurers that provide employer insurance or administer Medicare plans may benefit, to some extent. (Max Nisen, 3/8)
The Washington Post:
Donald Trump Promised To Make The ‘Best’ Deals. It’s Time To Prove It On Healthcare.
Donald Trump was elected president on this basic idea: Everyone currently in the government is dumb and makes bad deals. ... Now it was time to turn things over to someone who had actually sat across a boardroom table and cut deals in the real world. Enter the new health-care bill that aims to remove several major tenets of the Affordable Care Act and replace them with more conservative proposals. (Chris Cillizza, 3/8)
The New York Times:
Getting Freedom From Health
What’s the rush on repealing Obamacare? It’s true President Trump did promise speediness during the campaign. (“You’re going to end up with great health care for a fraction of the price and that’s gonna take place immediately after we go in. O.K.? Immediately. Fast. Quick.”) But that was before he discovered that health care was … “complicated.” This sort of thinking will send us back to discussions about how our president has no permanent convictions on any subject except the inferiority of Arnold Schwarzenegger as a reality show host. Let’s move on. We have a national disaster to watch unrolling. (Gail Collins, 3/9)
The Philadelphia Inquirer/Philly.com:
Don't Rescind Progress On Health Care
We are waiting for official details that outline coverage impacts, but our initial analysis of the House plan (officially called the American Health Care Act) shows that recent coverage gains are at risk of erosion. Big changes to Medicaid will jeopardize coverage for more than 700,000 newly insured Pennsylvanians -- most of them in working families with very low incomes -- who have been covered through the Affordable Care Act's expansion of Medicaid. Pennsylvanians who buy their insurance on the Health Insurance Marketplace also will be at risk. The tax credits put forth in the American Health Care Act are not sufficient to make insurance affordable for low-income Americans not covered through their jobs. (Andy Carter, 3/8)
Forbes:
Every State Must Close Obamacare's Special Enrollment Loopholes To Reduce Premium Growth
[N]ew legislation takes a long time to get to the President’s desk. Meanwhile, the Trump Administration has the unenviable task of enforcing a law they know harms Americans. They are doing the best they can to offer relief through administrative rule-making. (John Graham, 3/8)
Forbes:
A Shift To Medicaid Block Grants Is A Threat To People With Disabilities
Repeal of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) or eliminating its provisions expanding Medicaid and Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) will jeopardize people with disabilities, including autistic children and adults, according to an editorial published in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM). ... This shift to block grants is emphatically a part of the current, if already beleaguered, proposed replacement for ACA, the American Health Care Act (AHCA). The tax cut that it promises for the rich, amounting to almost $300 billion according to Slate's Jordan Wiessman, will find its funding in Medicaid cuts, carved out by way of these block grants starting in 2020. (Emily Willingham, 3/9)
San Jose Mercury News:
GOP Health Care Plan Is A Disaster For California
House Speaker Paul Ryan released the plan Monday, and Trump enthusiastically endorsed it Tuesday — even though it covers fewer Americans, increases costs for low-income and senior citizens, increases the deficit, defunds Planned Parenthood and does zero to reduce overall health care costs. Zero. (3/8)
Los Angeles Times:
A State Single-Payer Healthcare System? Nice Idea, But It's Just California Dreaming
Now, with congressional Republicans and President Trump trying to repeal and replace Obamacare, some Sacramento Democrats think they see an opening to finally adopt a California version of single-payer. Under single-payer, healthcare costs are paid for by the government, rather than by private insurance. The healthcare itself is still delivered by private physicians. Some version that would allow people to buy supplemental private insurance — call it “Medicare-for-all” — presumably could fit into the system these Democrats envision. We really don’t know because they haven’t actually proposed anything. They’re promising details in two weeks. (Ike Skelton, 3/9)
Chicago Sun Times:
Republican Health Care Plan A Headache For Illinois
The Republican Party’s proposed replacement for Obamacare might be tolerable if the lives of real people were not on the line. But at least here in Illinois, we can assure Congress, the harm would be real and great. Hundreds of thousands of people likely would be left without health insurance, and our state’s economy, already so shaky, would take another hit. Especially hurt in Illinois could be some 3.2 million people who receive health insurance through the Medicaid program. (3/8)
Arizona Republic:
AARP Says 'Trumpcare' Repeals, Replaces ... Seniors
The American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) has come out against the Republican legislation meant to repeal and replace Obamacare. ... The group also issued a statement reading in part that the bill’s “cuts could impact people of all ages and put at risk the health and safety of 17.4 million children and adults with disabilities and seniors by eliminating much-needed services that allow individuals to live independently in their homes and communities.” (EJ Montini, 3/8)