Trump Is Correct

[UtahFanSir]

President Trump did a good job in his press conference today, establishing his position and thoughts on the failed AHCA. The AHCA failed not because of Democrats. This effort was going to be crammed down throats in the same way the existing legislation was. No good.

I also believe he is 100% correct that significant work is required to improve the ACA or whatever it gets called next time. In some markets, insurance companies are pulling out and that is troubling. He is also correct that it needs to be a bi-partisan effort. His speculation that Democrats will want to improve any HC bill are spot on. I just hope both sides of the aisle are willing to do that.

[SkinyUte]

Saw this elsewhere, but I think it’s a pretty good summary.

A bill to reform the Affordable Care Act that included the following provisions would likely pass Congress with bipartisan support (if you could get the GOP to move from “repeal & replace” to “retain & repair”):

– Allow people above the 133% FPL coverage level that qualifies to expanded Medicaid but under, say, 300% FPL to buy into Medicaid with funds from their subsidy.
– Expand funding for the risk corridors, which would bring down deductibles.
– Repeal the employer mandate
– Expand subsidy coverage to people making up to 700% FPL (so that middle class families don’t carry full weight of premiums).
– Add a “copper” level to the metal categories with 55% actuarial value and very high deductibles, available only to people under 40, to bring young invincibles into the pools.
– Add more flexibility to the Medicaid expansion to get the 19 states without expanded Medicaid to go through with it.

That would address most of the substantive complaints about the Affordable Care Act, particularly the “cost cliffs” that occur when people move from being Medicaid-eligible to subsidized and from subsidized to unsubsidized. This would actually do the things Trump said he wanted to do regarding healthcare in the campaign.

Of course, Democrats (often with a couple of Republican cosponsors) have offered some or all of these proposals in legislation in recent years. House Republican leadership has never allowed a vote on any of those bills.

[Utah]

It failed because the Republicans had no plan. They’ve spent the past 8 years digging themselves into a hole they can’t get out of. 

Now that they’ve admitted to the ACA being the law of the land, let’s work together to make it better. Let’s do this. We can make the ACA a lot better. 

Let’s put our heads together and get to work. 

[Utah]

Trump admits he has no clue what he is doing:

“This was an interesting period of time. We all learned a lot,” he said in the Oval Office. “We learned a lot about loyalty and we learned a lot about the vote getting process. And we learned about very arcane rules in both the Senate and the House.

I think he is the only one surprised at the whole process.