Perspectives On Trump And Health Care: Price’s Surprises At Hearing; Echoes Of Bernie

Huffington Post: Trump Health Pick Says It’s ‘Imperative’ People Get To Keep Obamacare Coverage
Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.), President-elect Donald Trump’s choice to run the Department of Health and Human Services, just put down some potentially important markers on health care policy. During a Senate hearing Wednesday, Price said is “absolutely imperative” that people with insurance get to keep their coverage even if Republicans repeal Obamacare. Price also said that, as far as he knows, Trump continues to oppose cuts in Medicare and Medicaid. Making sure nobody loses coverage and maintaining existing funding for Medicaid isn’t consistent with what Republicans, including Price, have said or endorsed in the past. (Jeffrey Young and Jonathan Cohn, 1/18)

The Washington Post: Gauzy Promises To Replace Obamacare Aren’t Enough
In the first of two hearings on his nomination to head the Department of Health and Human Services, Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.) on Wednesday asked members of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee to put him at the center of the Obamacare repeal-and-replace effort. To a nation increasingly nervous about the many dangers of ripping up the health law, Mr. Price offered some big promises — but scant reassurance. (1/18)

Health Affairs: First, Do No Harm: A Physician Secretary Of HHS And The Reach Of Hippocrates
If the U.S. Senate confirms the nomination of Representative Tom Price to serve as the 23rd U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) he will be only the third physician to lead that department since its formation in 1953. ... All Americans — and physicians in particular, myself included — are looking to Rep. Price to work closely with Congress to develop a realistic plan for changing the Affordable Care Act in a way that actually improves the law, without interrupting Americans’ access to health insurance coverage and high-quality care. This will be Secretary-Designee Tom Price’s first, and possibly most important, test. (Louis W. Sullivan, 1/17)

Forbes: Why Trump's 'Everybody' Health Plan Sounds Like Bernie's
Trump also has repeatedly said he wants Medicare to bargain for lower drug prices: "The other thing we have to do is create new bidding procedures for the drug industry, because they’re getting away with murder," Trump said. Does this mean that the GOP's long-sought objective to "repeal and replace" the Affordable Care Act and privatize Medicare will include some mechanism for the government to use its single-payer power to get the lowest-possible drug prices? ... allowing the government to lower drug costs by acting like a Wal-Mart -- the biggest buyer gets the best prices -- makes eminent sense. (John Wasick, 1/18)

The Washington Post: How Republican-Style Health-Care Reform Quickly Becomes A Tax Cut For The Richest Of The Rich
The election of Donald Trump with a Republican-majority Congress is proving once again that conservative economic policy largely reduces to cutting taxes, mostly for the rich. But wait a second, aren’t they also wading into health-care reform? They are, and it proves my point. While much attention is reasonably focused on how they’re all repeal with no replace — and how that’s likely to reverse the coverage gains we’ve seen and undermine insurance markets — there’s something else going on here. And that is — you guessed it — a big tax cut for the rich. (Jared Bernstein, 1/18)

Bloomberg: The Once And Future Obamacare Death Spiral
Last year, premium increases came in much higher than the program’s supporters had hoped or expected. A number of observers, including me, worried that we might be at the tipping point, where higher premiums cause healthier people to drop their insurance. When that happens, the average cost of covering the people who remain goes up, so premiums go up … which means that more people drop their insurance … which ultimately means disaster. (Megan McArdle, 1/18)

Health Affairs: How We Can Repeal The ACA And Still Insure The Uninsured
But even if the ACA stays in place, there will still be almost 30 million people without health insurance and another 20 million or so who all too often face deductibles that are unreasonably high for moderate-income families and provider networks that are much too narrow for people with serious medical problems. ... We believe the health care system is desperately in need of reform. But the focus of that reform should not be the Affordable Care Act. The initial goal should be: making sure everyone has access to health insurance that is affordable and that gives them dependable access to medical care. Further, we believe that goal can be accomplished with money already in the system. We don’t need any new taxes or any new spending programs. (Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas, Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., and John Goodman, 1/18)

National Review: Obamacare Repeal Must Roll Back The Medicaid Expansion
As leaders working on state-based policy solutions across the country, we have seen the impact of Obamacare on our communities up close. That’s why we’ve produced a report, being released today, on the need to unwind the law’s disastrous expansion of Medicaid. ... many people don’t know that most of Obamacare’s coverage gains have come not through those exchanges, but through its new expansion of Medicaid to able-bodied, working-age adults. (Ellen Weaver and Caleb Crosby, 1/19)

The Washington Post: The GOP Plan To Fund Medicaid Through Block Grants Will Probably Weaken It
But many key Republicans are especially interested in changing Medicaid, the nation’s health insurance program for the poor — including Trump, House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (Wis.) and Tom Price (Ga.), Trump’s nominee to head the Department of Health and Human Services. Each of those three has proposed converting Medicaid from a program funded jointly by the federal government and the states into a block grant program. Doing so would send a set amount of money to each state, thus capping total Medicaid spending, and would let each state decide how to disburse those funds. (Ryan LaRochelle, 1/18)

Health Affairs: Interstate Insurance Sales: Wishful Thinking, Or A Viable Policy Option?
Anyone who followed the recent election cycle knows that President-elect Donald Trump made “repeal and replace” a cornerstone of his campaign — referring, of course, to the Affordable Care Act (ACA). He, like Mitt Romney and John McCain did in their respective bids for the presidency, has proposed permitting insurers to sell insurance plans across state lines as a possible alternative to the ACA, or at least as a component of a potential alternative. In this post, we’ll take a look at the possible advantages of allowing interstate insurance sales, as well as the reasons opponents say such a policy simply won’t work. (John Marchica, 1/18)