As Democrats enter the final sprint in a campaign where health care is a dominant issue and a House takeover seems achievable, they are split on whether to promise coverage for everyone, which would fuel an already revved-up liberal base, or target centrist voters by campaigning on the more modest goal of fixing the Obama-era health law.
Republicans are sending mixed messages on federalism. On “gag clauses,” all Republicans save two voted on Monday to intrude on states’ handling of pharmaceutical negotiations — even though a majority of states have passed legislation on this topic, including 15 just this year. And on “surprise billing,” Sen. Bill Cassidy — sponsor of the Graham-Cassidy legislation — apparently thinks states are smart enough to handle $1.2 trillion in Obamacare spending, yet are too stupid to craft policy regarding out-of-network medical bills.
Imagine government bureaucrats in Washington deciding whether your life is worth saving or not. Such a nightmare that could very well become a reality should the Democrats get their way.
When the government gets involved in healthcare, it always leads to disaster and death — and “Medicare for All” is the crown jewel of social healthcare programs.
Those who are still unsure about the effectiveness of a government-run healthcare system should look to our northern neighbor, Canada, to see for themselves.
No one wants to sit in an exam room while the doctor spends precious minutes entering billing information into an electronic health record. But frustrations like this don’t mean we should give up on technology’s potential to improve health outcomes. The data collected by a new generation of digital health products—including smart watches, smartphones and fitness trackers—could help the medical community learn about treatments that might work for a patient like you, and which ones to avoid. The first step is enabling them to stream data wirelessly to your doctor’s EHR.
The pre-existing-conditions offensive against the GOP is based on its votes to repeal ObamaCare. But the truth is that every Republican in Congress who voted for repeal also voted to require states to provide protections for people with pre-existing conditions. The GOP approach was to let each state figure out how best to accomplish this under a federal system that worked better than the Affordable Care Act. Republicans trusted leaders in state capitals to do better than Washington for the people of their states.
Maryland’s attorney general on Thursday filed a lawsuit against President Donald Trump’s administration for recurring efforts he says are intended to dismantle the national health care law and chase people away from coverage.
The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court of Maryland comes as the latest push to scrap the Affordable Care Act has pressed ahead in Texas. Last week, 20 Republican-controlled states asked a federal judge to bring the law to a halt, arguing that the entire health statute was rendered unconstitutional after Congress repealed the “individual mandate” that required most Americans to buy insurance or risk a tax penalty.
As Affordable Care Act protections for people with pre-existing conditions continue to play a major role in the discourse surrounding health care legislation ahead of the midterm elections, a new Morning Consult/Politico survey shows widespread, bipartisan support among voters for these ACA provisions.
In the survey of 1,988 registered voters conducted Sept. 6-9, 83 percent of Democrats and 80 percent of Republicans say that insurance companies should not have the legal right to deny coverage for people who have pre-existing conditions. Among all registered voters, 81 percent had the same opinion.
Congressional appropriators on Thursday approved $90.5 billion in HHS appropriations in a spending package that includes $3.8 billion in opioids funding. Congress designated $1.5 billion of the opioid funds to state response grants to replace the $500 million from the 21st Century Cures Act due to expire in May of 2019. The funding comes as the Senate heads for a Monday vote on its major opioids package.
Based on the facts, Obamacare should be a disaster for Democrats this fall. As Bill Clinton observed, people are paying twice as much for half the coverage. Among those who don’t get any federal subsidy (everyone making more than, say, $50,000), premiums have doubled and tripled and there has been a 29% drop off – even though they face a fine for being uninsured next April 15th.
“Medicare for All” is an enormously popular slogan, as evidenced by a slew of recent surveys. Its widespread appeal has emboldened the growing ranks of America’s democratic socialists, the more ambitious of whom see it as the entering wedge of a larger transformation of the country’s economic life. It’s also an indulgent fantasy, based on the illusion that we can simply reset the way the U.S. health-care system operates.