First Edition: March 14, 2017
Kaiser Health News:
Deciphering CBO’s Estimates On The GOP Health Bill
[Fifteen] percent of Planned Parenthood clinic patients would “lose access to care.” These patients generally live in areas without other sources of medical care for low-income people. (Rovner, 3/13)
Kaiser Health News:
Say What? Fact-Checking The Chatter Around The GOP Health Bill
Republicans are in a hurry to get their “repeal and replace” health care bill to the House floor. In just the week since it was introduced, two committees have approved the “American Health Care Act,” and a floor vote is planned before month’s end. But in the rush to legislate, some facts surrounding the bill have gotten, if not lost, a little buried. Here are five things that are commonly confused about the health overhaul effort. (Rovner, 3/13)
Kaiser Health News:
Companies Behind Health Savings Accounts Could Bank On Big Profits Under GOP Plan
Health savings accounts are poised for a major expansion by Republicans in Washington, D.C., and that could mean millions more customers — and fees — flowing to a handful of companies. Investors are betting on it, bidding up shares of HSA provider HealthEquity by about 35 percent since the November election. It’s one of the best performing stocks on Wall Street since Donald Trump won the White House. (Terhune and Appleby, 3/14)
Kaiser Health News:
Families To Pay Price If Maternity Care Coverage Is Cut By GOP
Christie Popp, who is pregnant with her third child, is hoping hard that the maternity coverage she has through the Affordable Care Act doesn’t go away. That coverage is written into the health law as a requirement for every plan sold on the individual market. But that could change if Republicans get their way to repeal the ACA and remake health care. (Rovner, 3/14)
The New York Times:
Health Bill Would Add 24 Million Uninsured But Save $337 Billion, Report Says
The House Republican plan to replace the Affordable Care Act would increase the number of people without health insurance by 24 million by 2026, while slicing $337 billion off federal budget deficits over that time, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said Monday. (Kaplan and Pear, 3/13)
The Washington Post:
Affordable Care Act Revision Would Reduce Insured Numbers By 24 Million, CBO Projects
The report predicted that premiums would be 15 percent to 20 percent higher in the first year compared with those under the Affordable Care Act but 10 percent lower on average after 2026. By and large, older Americans would pay “substantially” more and younger Americans less. (Goldstein, Viebeck, Snell and DeBonis, 3/13)
The Associated Press:
What The Budget Analysts Say About GOP Health Care Bill
Fourteen million more people would be uninsured next year, mostly 6 million who wouldn't get coverage on the individual market and 5 million fewer under Medicaid. The number of uninsured would rise to 24 million in 2026. Much of the increase would be from changes in Medicaid enrollment as states end Obama's expansions of eligibility. (3/14)
NPR:
GOP Health Care Bill Could Leave 24M More Without Coverage By 2026, CBO Says
In addition, CBO estimates that the Republican bill would reduce the number of employers offering health insurance, in part because it repeals the employer mandate to provide insurance. The CBO also notes that the GOP plan's tax credits (available only to people who aren't offered insurance at their jobs) would be available to more people than under Obamacare. (Kurtzleben, 3/13)
Los Angeles Times:
Millions More Would Be Uninsured Under GOP Healthcare Plan, Independent Analysis Shows
Hardest hit in the long run will be lower-income Americans and those nearing retirement, according to the budget office, which estimates that over the next decade, the GOP legislation would cut about $1 trillion in federal healthcare assistance to low- and moderate-income Americans. (Levey and Mascaro, 3/13)
The Washington Post:
Proposed Surcharge For Dropping Health Coverage Is No Real Stick, CBO Projects
The House Republicans’ mechanism for persuading healthy Americans to stay insured would be largely ineffective, according to the new Congressional Budget Office analysis released Monday, and it would ultimately lead to about 2 million fewer Americans buying insurance each year. (Eilperin, 3/13)
The Washington Post:
CBO: Defunding Planned Parenthood Would Lead To Thousands More Births
A congressional plan to make Planned Parenthood ineligible for federal funding would leave many women without services to help them avoid pregnancy, resulting in thousands of additional births, according to a new federal budget analysis. (Somashekhar, 3/13)
USA Today:
CBO: Obamacare Repeal Will Increase Uninsured By 24 Million By 2026
Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price said the projections of uninsured were too high and called them "just not believable." (Kelly, 3/13)
The Wall Street Journal:
CBO Sees 24 Million More Uninsured, $337 Billion Deficit Cut In Coming Decade With GOP Health Plan
But Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) said Republicans shouldn’t reject the CBO report because they don’t like every element of it. “Let’s say the CBO is half right—that should be cause for concern,” Mr. Graham told reporters. “The prudent thing for the party to do is to look at the CBO report and see if we can address some of the concerns raised.” (Armour and Peterson, 3/13)
The Associated Press:
Critics Of GOP Health Bill Get Ammunition From Budget Score
Critics of GOP health care legislation got fresh ammunition from a report that estimates the bill would increase the ranks of the uninsured by 14 million people next year alone, and 24 million over a decade. (Werner, 3/14)
The Wall Street Journal:
Why Health-Care Hurdles In Washington Will Cheer Wall Street
Bad news for the Republicans’ health-care plan looks like good news for the health-care industry. (Grant, 3/13)
Politico:
5 Takeaways From The CBO's Report On Obamacare Repeal
The Republicans have cast themselves as hard-headed saviors of a broken system in which Americans are forced to buy coverage they don’t want and can’t afford. But the numbers CBO issued Monday won’t make for an easier sell. (Bettelheim and Millman, 3/13)
The New York Times:
C.B.O. Analysis: Republican Health Plan Will Save Money But Drive Up The Number Of Uninsured
Here are the key findings from the report. (Park, Lai, Patel and Almukhtar, 3/13)
The New York Times:
Document: C.B.O. Rates Republican Health Care Plan
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office on Monday released its estimates of the cost and coverage of the American Health Care Act, the Republican plan to replace the Affordable Care Act. (3/13)
Politico:
GOP Scrambles After Scorching Health Bill Appraisal
House Republican leaders plunged into damage control mode Monday after a brutal budgetary assessment of their Obamacare replacement threatened to upend Senate GOP support and armed their critics on the left. Speaker Paul Ryan’s team quickly pinpointed rosier elements of the report by the Congressional Budget Office, from cost savings to lower premiums. (Cheney, Everett and Pradhan, 3/13)
The Washington Post:
White House Attacks On CBO Could Set Up Months Of Brawling
CBO officials are often political punching bags, but vitriolic attacks from top White House officials in recent days have the potential to erode the agency’s standing at a time when its assessments of health-care policy, changes to the tax code and deficit projections will factor into whether Congress enacts key parts of the Trump administration’s agenda. (Paletta, 3/13)
Politico:
White House Analysis Of Obamacare Repeal Sees Even Deeper Insurance Losses Than CBO
The House bill was already under attack from both very conservative members who wanted it to go further, as well as moderates worried about coverage erosion particularly in Medicaid. The CBO number made the task of passing it even more challenging. (Demko, 3/13)
The Associated Press:
Trump: GOP Bill Will Push Insurance Costs 'Down, Down, Down'
President Donald Trump sought to highlight complaints about the Obama health care law Monday, including a gripe of his own, that the law is "a disaster" but that the media makes it look "wonderful." (3/13)
The Wall Street Journal:
At White House, Patients Share Complaints About Obamacare
Mr. Trump hosted people with complaints about the pricing and coverage of the current insurance system in the White House on Monday as he kicked off the second week of the administration’s make-or-break effort to overturn the 2010 health law and replace it with what he called a “thing of beauty.” (Radnofsky, 3/13)
The Washington Post:
Trump Compares Coverage Of Obamacare To Obama’s Popularity: ‘When He Left, People Liked Him’
Turns out Obamacare is a little bit like its namesake president: kind of popular. President Trump is in the midst of his pitch to the American public that it's time to throw out the Affordable Care Act, also known as “Obamacare,” and replace it with a new Republican bill, the American Health Care Act. The problem is, according to Trump, the press and the public have come down with something akin to seller's remorse. (Phillip, 3/13)
The New York Times:
Fact Check: Trump’s Critiques Of The Affordable Care Act
President Trump blamed the news media on Monday morning for “making Obamacare look so good” as he spoke at a listening session with nine people he characterized as “victims” of the health care law. Mr. Trump repeated his declaration that “Obamacare is a disaster” — a sentiment echoed more specifically by White House and cabinet officials in the past few days. (Qiu, 3/13)
The Associated Press Fact Check:
What About Trump's Vow On Health Coverage?
President Donald Trump told Americans he'd do it all on health care: "insurance for everybody," better coverage and lower consumer costs. By the reckoning of nonpartisan budget analysts at Congress, that's not what will happen if the Republican bill he's backing becomes law. (3/14)
The Washington Post:
The GOP’s Dramatic Change In Strategy To Pass Its Health-Care Law
To get the Affordable Care Act passed, Democrats used a big-tent approach, convening health-care groups that did not normally talk to one another while cutting deals and strong-arming key industry players to build broad support for the plan. First, the drug companies got on board. Then came the hospitals and the doctors. (Johnson, 3/13)
Reuters:
Republican Obamacare Repeal Would Benefit Wealthiest: Study
A Republican plan to repeal taxes set under Obamacare would benefit the wealthiest U.S. households at more than five times the rate for middle-income families, according to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center. (Morgan, 3/13)
The Washington Post:
There Are Now Enough Skeptical Republicans To Doom The GOP’s Obamacare Replacement Bill
To get their version of an Obamacare replacement through Congress and onto President Trump's desk, Republican leaders need only a simple majority in both chambers to approve it. But that could be difficult. (Phillips, 3/13)
Los Angeles Times:
Darrell Issa Is 'Not Prepared' To Support GOP Healthcare Plan Yet
Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Vista) said Monday he is "not prepared" to vote for Republican's health care bill. "I'm not prepared to vote for it [as it] is right now," the long-serving Republican congressman said Monday on "Fox and Friends." (Wire, 3/13)
Politico:
Trump Looks To Woo Conservatives On Obamacare Repeal
President Donald Trump's White House is increasingly likely to support some conservative-backed changes to the House Obamacare alternative, two administration officials said Monday — a move that comes after a nonpartisan budgetary analysis showed 24 million people could lose insurance under the bill. (Dawsey, Bade and Palmeri, 3/13)
NPR:
Health Bill Could Affect Patients Widely, Surgeon Worries
Atul Gawande is a cancer surgeon at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, Mass., and a staff writer at The New Yorker magazine. He has spoken out against the GOP bill, expressing concern that it would cause poor and sick people to lose health coverage. (Hersher, 3/13)
