Decoding The Charged Buzzwords Emerging In Health Law Debate

Stat: Your Guide To The Weird World Of Obamacare Rhetoric
The Obamacare repeal effort is just getting underway and already the political wordplay is dizzying. On the GOP side, the rhetoric has gone from “repeal and replace” to “insurance for everybody” to “repair and rebuild.” Meanwhile, Democrats continually warn that the Republicans are trying to “rip apart our health care system.”To help you keep pace with the debate, we’ve assembled this handy glossary of buzzwords and talking points. (Ross, 1/19)

CQ Roll Call: Details Still Sparse On GOP Health Plan
Congressional Republicans appear no closer on Inauguration Day than in recent weeks to having a coherent strategy in place to achieve the incoming Trump administration’s goal to simultaneously repeal and replace the 2010 health care law. House and Senate Republicans hope to get more organized during a policy retreat next week in Philadelphia where health care is expected to be a significant topic. Several major questions—including what the GOP will do about the $9 billion or so that would be needed to fund cost-sharing subsidies for people covered by Obamacare plans, and whether to repeal the law’s Medicaid expansion—remain unanswered. Even basic questions are still up in the air, including timelines for the four committee markups of reconciliation instructions that will carry repeal. (Williams, 1/20)

The Hill: GOP Senator: Let's Work With Dems To 'Fix' ObamaCare
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) said Thursday that he thinks Republicans should work with Democrats to “fix” ObamaCare. The remarks strike a more pragmatic and cautious tone on ObamaCare than the usual Republican rhetoric of “repeal and replace.” “Let’s start working with Democrats. Let’s transition to a system that will actually work, that, you know, Democrats are talking about. They want to fix it. Well, let’s fix it for the benefit of the American public,” Johnson said on CNBC. (Sullivan, 1/19)

The Hill: Poll: Nearly 50 Percent Of Americans Favor ObamaCare
Americans are largely split over ObamaCare, according to a new poll.A CNN/ORC poll finds that 49 percent of Americans favor ObamaCare. But 47 percent of respondents oppose President Obama's signature healthcare legislation. The poll marks the first time more people have said they favor the healthcare law than oppose it since it passed in 2010, CNN noted. (Savaranksy, 1/19)

Bloomberg: Obamacare Replacement May Improve Patient Access, Novartis Says 
Repealing and replacing Obamacare could benefit the pharmaceutical industry if it allows drugmakers to get cutting-edge new medicines to more U.S. patients, said Joe Jimenez, chief executive officer of Swiss health-care giant Novartis AG. Parts of the Affordable Care Act, President Barack Obama’s signature health-care law, have made it hard for patients to get access to some new drugs because they have high co-pays or aren’t covered, Jimenez said in an interview on Thursday at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. (Simmons, Zelenko and Paton, 1/19)

Modern Healthcare: Will Open Payments Be A Casualty Of The ACA Repeal?
Right now, when doctors accept money or gifts from drug companies and devicemakers, that information is published on Open Payments, an online database created under the Affordable Care Act. The program has increased transparency in an era of murky conflicts of interest and has helped link physicians' prescribing habits to their industry connections. But as Republican lawmakers rush toward repealing the Affordable Care Act, some observers fear the section of the law that created the Open Payments program will face the chopping block. (Whitman, 1/19)

Meanwhile, in the states —

New Orleans Times-Picayune: Mayor Landrieu, New Orleans Council Want Obamacare Preserved
Mayor Mitch Landrieu and the New Orleans City Council lent their voices to a chorus of local and state officials urging Republicans in Congress to reconsider the push to repeal the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. With a letter to House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wisconsin, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, Wednesday (Jan. 18) Landrieu said a repeal would jeopardize health insurance coverage for one out of every five Louisiana residents. It also shakes the financial confidence of health care providers, he said. (Rainey, 1/19)

The Philadelphia Inquirer: Report Projects ACA Repeal Would Cost 137,000 PA Jobs And Double State Budget Deficit
Repealing the Affordable Care Act would cause significant financial pain to businesses, patients, and taxpayers in Pennsylvania, according to a report released Thursday. The state's projected budget deficit would nearly double, and an estimated 3,425 additional residents would die prematurely each year. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office had projected two days earlier that partial repeal would increase the ranks of the uninsured nationwide by 18 million the first year and 32 million within a decade. (Sapatkin, 1/19)

The Baltimore Sun: Maryland Could Lose Billions In Federal Funding If ACA Is Repealed
The repeal of Obamacare could cost the State of Maryland nearly $2 billion in Medicaid funding for more than 260,000 people, state legislative analysts told lawmakers Thursday. Hospitals could lose an additional $2.3 billion, the analysts told the House Health and Government Operations Committee. That's federal money they receive for working to keep health care costs down. (Cohn, 1/19)

California Healthline: California Withdraws Bid To Allow Undocumented Immigrants To Buy Unsubsidized Obamacare Plans
Lawmakers in Sacramento have halted a first-in-the-nation effort by California to expand access to health coverage for immigrants living in the state without legal documents. At the behest of the state Legislature, Covered California, the state’s insurance exchange, withdrew its request to sell unsubsidized health plans to people who are here illegally. (Ibarra and Terhune, 1/20)

And Minnesota continues to try to ease the pain of high premium increases —

The Associated Press: In Minnesota, Rainy-Day Fund May Help Cover Insurance Hikes
Minnesota would use state money to offset the health premium hikes for more than 100,000 residents under a measure legislators were considering Thursday, a novel approach as states across the country grapple with the rising costs and uncertain future of the Affordable Care Act. (Potter, 1/19)

Pioneer Press: MN Health Insurance Relief Moves Ahead, Compromise Near?
Minnesota’s top leaders seem on the brink of a deal to bring health insurance premium relief to as many as 120,000 Minnesotans. This doesn’t mean a deal will actually get done. More than once in recent months, Democratic-Farmer-Labor Gov. Mark Dayton and legislative leaders have been close to a compromise only for everything to fall apart. And despite signs of compromise, several major divisive issues remain. (Montgomery, 1/19)

Pioneer Press: Minnesota Lawmakers Hope ‘Reinsurance’ Will Help Fix Health Insurance Market. Here’s How It Would Work 
Reinsurance, at its most basic, is insurance for insurance companies. Just like normal insurance distributes risk from individuals to a broader pool of people, reinsurance distributes risk away from a given insurance company.  More specifically, the kind of plan Minnesota is considering would shift the costs of some expensive patients away from the individual market.“It’s a mechanism to stabilize the market, (and) ultimately keep premiums down for consumers,” said Mike Rothman, Minnesota’s commerce commissioner. (Montgomery, 1/19)