Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Clinton Promises To Fix Obamacare If She Wins, But Her Proposals Face Long Odds In Congress
Bloomberg: Democrats Face Difficult Obamacare Fight In 2017, Even If Clinton Wins
After news broke Monday that premiums for the Affordable Care Act will rise an average of 22 percent next year, Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton spent the week defending the healthcare law, saying its problems are fixable. She called for lowering the Medicare buy-in age and again advocated for a so called public option — a government-run competitor to private insurers. While polls show her leading Republican Donald Trump with just 10 days to go before the election, a Clinton administration likely would find itself caught between liberal lawmakers wedded to the politically unviable public option and Republicans who want to scrap the law entirely. (John, 10/28)
The Hill: Clinton Faces New Challenges On ObamaCare
Responding to the uproar over ObamaCare premium hikes, Hillary Clinton on Tuesday promised: “We’re going to make changes to fix problems like that.” The question is: What changes could actually get through Congress? Both parties agree that ObamaCare has problems. Premiums are rising sharply, and the pool of enrollees is smaller and sicker than expected. (Sullivan, 10/27)
In other 2016 election news —
The Washington Post Fact Checker: Trump’s Claim That He Predicted That Obamacare ‘Can’t Work’
After the fact, Trump often likes to claim he had great foresight. But then it turns out there is slim evidence to back up his assertions. ... So this made us wonder when Trump started to claim that he warned against the structure of the Affordable Care Act when it was passed in 2010. As he put it, he claimed that “the concept is no good” and that “it’s going to be a disaster” and that he knew the premiums were going to soar. Is that remotely true? (Kessler, 10/28)
The Hill: Poll: Top Healthcare Priority Is Drug Prices, Not ObamaCare
High drug prices, not ObamaCare, are the public’s top healthcare priority, according to a new poll released Thursday. The poll from The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation finds that 74 percent of the public lists making sure high-cost drugs are affordable as a healthcare priority for the next President and Congress. (Sullivan, 10/27)
