Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Negative Perspectives: Searching For The Rationale Behind Senate Republicans' 'Unaffordable,' 'Unconscionable,' 'Jekyll-and-Hyde' Health Plan
The New York Times: The Senate’s Unaffordable Care Act
It would be a big mistake to call the legislation Senate Republicans released on Thursday a health care bill. It is, plain and simple, a plan to cut taxes for the wealthy by destroying critical federal programs that help provide health care to tens of millions of people. (6/23)
The New York Times: What Is Mitch McConnell Thinking On Health Care?
After weeks of speculation and secret meetings, on Thursday Senate Republican leaders unveiled their version of the plan to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. On the surface, this bill and its optics are unbelievably bad. It cuts health benefits for millions of poor and disabled Americans, increases costs for the elderly and others, and slaps a temporary Band-Aid on the Obamacare insurance markets. And it surely fails to deliver on President Donald Trump’s promise to make insurance both better and more affordable. Oh, and fewer than one in five Americans support the bill’s close cousin that has already passed the House. (Sarah Binder, 6/22)
The Washington Post: Senate Republicans Ready Themselves For A Massive Theft From The Poor
The “health-care bill” that Republicans are trying to pass in the Senate, like the one approved by the GOP majority in the House, isn’t really about health care at all. It’s the first step in a massive redistribution of wealth from struggling wage-earners to the rich — a theft of historic proportions. (Eugene Robinson, 6/22)
USA Today: Senate Health Bill Hazardous To America
After weeks of secret negotiations, Senate Republicans on Thursday took the wraps off their plan to repeal and replace Obamacare. It deserves the old surgeon general's warning about cigarettes: This product may be hazardous to your health. Like its House counterpart, the Senate plan would end insurance coverage for millions of people, probably tens of millions. It's hard to know for sure, because the plan has yet to be evaluated by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office. (6/22)
The New York Times: The Republicans’ Jekyll-And-Hyde Health Care Plan
The Senate Republicans’ health bill that was made public today is a Jekyll-and-Hyde plan: in some ways kinder than the House Republican plan, and in some ways meaner, to use President Donald Trump’s yardstick. Overall the plan will benefit the wealthy and young adults, but hurt larger numbers of people who are old or poor. (Drew Altman, 6/22)
The Washington Post: Senate Republicans’ Obamacare Replacement Is Bad For America’s Health
Senate Republican leaders released on Thursday a draft health-care bill, supposedly designed to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. It includes a range of mostly unwise and ungenerous changes to the nation’s health-care system, but it might, if enacted, end up as mostly a massive, unpaid-for tax cut for wealthy people and industries with pull on Capitol Hill. (6/22)
Los Angeles Times: Senate GOP's Obamacare Repeal Bill Will Cost Lives, But Fatten The Wallets Of Millionaires
Senate Republicans finally revealed on Thursday why they’ve been crafting their Affordable Care Act repeal in secret. As the newly released draft shows, it’s a rollback of health coverage for millions of Americans that could cost the lives of tens of thousands a year. But make no mistake: This is not a healthcare bill. It’s a tax cut for the wealthiest Americans, paid for by a reduction in government funding for healthcare. The measure would constitute one of the largest single transfers of wealth to the rich from the middle class and poor in American history. (Michael Hiltzik, 6/22)
RealClear Health: Senate Bill Isn’t “Better Care” For Anyone
With the release of the Senate’s “Better Care Reconciliation Act of 2017 (BCRA),” the public finally gets a glimpse of legislation crafted in utter secrecy for the past two months, and now we know why. Despite the fanfare and feigned earnestness of the upper chamber’s efforts to improve on the “mean” House-passed American Health Care Act (AHCA), the Senate bill would be disastrous for low-income families, patients with pre-existing conditions, children, and the aged, while undermining health care security for virtually everyone else. (Billy Wynne, 6/23)
Bloomberg: Republicans' Health-Care Bills Boil Down To ... More Obamacare
The nation has been waiting with bated breath for the Senate to unveil its version of the House health-care bill. Okay, maybe not the nation. But a whole lot of health-care wonks have, and this morning, we finally got a look at the thing. (Megan McArdle, 6/22)
San Jose Mercury News: Senate GOP Health Care Bill Is Unconscionable
The 142-page Senate health care bill revealed Thursday was written in secret by 13 white men with little or no expertise on health care issues and no advice from doctors, hospitals or health economists, let alone from the public... We can only hope a few Republicans care enough about the health of women, children and the elderly to join Democrats in stopping this travesty. (6/22)
The Charlotte Observer: Senate Health Plan Is A Little Obamacare With A Lot Of Pain
If you squint a little and tilt your head just the right way, the health care plan Republican senators introduced Thursday has a familiar look to it: It’s Obamacare-lite. Or at least Obamacare-ish. The Affordable Care Act subsidies that allow low-income people to afford policies? They’re in the Senate plan, although at slightly lower levels than Obamacare. (6/22)
Chicago Sun Times: Senate GOP Health Care Bill Hammers Illinois, While Rauner Is AWOL
It is no surprise that the proposed Senate Republican bill to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, finally dragged into the light Thursday, is horribly wrong-headed. Any “reform” of Obamacare that is driven by a desire, above all, to cut taxes by hundreds of millions of dollars for rich people is sure to leave many other Americans worse off. The Senate GOP plan would leave tens of millions more Americans without insurance, result in higher premiums for older Americans, and allow insurance companies to water down benefits to joke status. (6/22)
The New England Journal Of Medicine: Moving In The Wrong Direction — Health Care Under The AHCA
On May 4, the U.S. House of Representatives resurrected Republican efforts to enact major health care legislation by narrowly passing the American Health Care Act (AHCA). A growing body of analytic work, including a Congressional Budget Office (CBO) assessment delivered on May 24,1 paints a dismal picture of how the AHCA would affect the health care system. The CBO analysis shows that the legislation would reduce the number of people with insurance coverage by 23 million, while narrowing coverage or increasing its cost for millions more. The resulting budgetary savings would finance tax cuts that would accrue disproportionately to high-income families. These effects contrast starkly with President Donald Trump’s promises that health care legislation would cover more people while lowering costs for families. (Matthew Fiedler, Henry J. Aaron, Loren Adler and Paul B. Ginsburg, 6/22)
