{"id":134702,"date":"2017-09-15T12:28:18","date_gmt":"2017-09-15T18:28:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/?p=134702"},"modified":"2017-09-15T14:31:12","modified_gmt":"2017-09-15T20:31:12","slug":"yes-gop-still-trying-take-aca-medicaid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/09\/15\/yes-gop-still-trying-take-aca-medicaid.html","title":{"rendered":"Yes, the GOP are STILL trying to take down the ACA &#8230; and Medicaid"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><i>Rising from the grave to eat the health care of the living &#8230;<\/i><\/p>\n<p>While some of the details are different from the varied attempts in the summer to get rid of the ACA, the end results remain much the same:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Getting rid of the ACA individual mandate (thus instantly shrinking the risk pool and increasing the cost for those remaining)<\/li>\n<li>Getting rid of the ACA employer mandate (ditto)<\/li>\n<li>Allowing states to opt out of essential health benefits (making insurance plans more bare-bones <i>and<\/i> making any state that chooses not to do so face even higher premiums and deductibles)<\/li>\n<li>Kneecapping Medicaid<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>It&#8217;s the last one that seems to be the real long game here. Medicaid currently works through matching funds &#8212; if states are willing to pony up money within the program, the federal government matches it. That provides tremendous resiliency, especially when economic downturns happen and the population eligible for Medicaid (largely based on the poverty line) shoots up, as happened in 2008-2009, or as can happen when a natural disaster that affects employment occurs.<\/p>\n<p>Not only does the new Graham-Cassidy bill get rid of the ACA&#8217;s expansion to Medicaid (making folk eligible who are tick above the federal poverty line), but it turns Medicaid into a block grant, only so much given to each state per person at existing levels, with growth due to inflation ratcheted well below medical inflation rates. So if a state&#8217;s Medicaid needs go up during a medical or economic crisis &#8212; well, the feds are off the hook to help.<\/p>\n<p>So not only do millions of Americans lose their insurance, but those who are the most needy end up with a shrinking level of assistance that will be utterly wiped out in case of an emergency. All so that the most wealthy taxpayers can get a tidy federal tax cut, and the GOP can claim victory.<\/p>\n<p>The folk behind this have only two weeks to push it through (this time), in terms of getting the bill pushed through the Senate, getting a matching bill in the House, and re-voting on any differences in the two &#8212; before the budget reconciliation shortcut expires on 9\/30 and they go from only needing 50 Senators (plus the VP) back to needing 60 Senators to close debate.<\/p>\n<p>So &#8230; contact your Senator. Take action <i>now.<\/i> Because they will keep coming, and it only takes <i>once<\/i> for them to get through and take it all away.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"sm2wp\"><p><a style=\"display: inline;\" href=\"https:\/\/consumerist.com\/2017\/09\/15\/senate-republicans-making-one-last-effort-to-take-down-obamacare\/\"><br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" style=\"max-width: 650px;\" src=\"https:\/\/lh3.googleusercontent.com\/proxy\/AX7SvkoVRUdhmxWdjrqKKP9KMf5-dr0zwoDE1mbHpwZ1P-4KoAdCBxw2IUhsmh5vJZdav86Sp_bNB_mI4KNCfKa_jyelO9RrwuFm9xZIQ2nnSbiQzrY=w506-h910\" border=\"0\" \/><br \/>\n<\/a><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: large;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/consumerist.com\/2017\/09\/15\/senate-republicans-making-one-last-effort-to-take-down-obamacare\/\">Senate Republicans Making One Last Effort To Take Down Obamacare<\/a><\/span><br \/>\nYes, again: After spending the spring and summer trying and failing to repeal the Affordable Care Act, Republicans in the Senate have come up with one last Hail-Mary bill to take down the ACA and r\u2026<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/plus.google.com\/+DaveHill47\/posts\/F7rzpbEtK5V\">View on Google+<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Rising from the grave to eat the health care of the living &#8230; While some of the details are different from the varied attempts in the summer to get rid of the ACA, the end results remain much the same: Getting rid of the ACA individual mandate (thus instantly shrinking the risk pool and increasing &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/09\/15\/yes-gop-still-trying-take-aca-medicaid.html\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Yes, the GOP are STILL trying to take down the ACA &#8230; and Medicaid&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":134710,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[106,134,358,376],"tags":[1195],"class_list":["post-134702","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-plusposts","category-health-care","category-poor-citizenship","category-taxing-spending","tag-repeal"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/US-Capitol-congress.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":133040,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/03\/14\/pushing-the-death-panels-down-to-the-states-is-not-the-flexibility-we-need.html","url_meta":{"origin":134702,"position":0},"title":"Pushing the Death Panels down to the states is not the &quot;flexibility&quot; we need","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 14-Mar-17 2:43pm","format":false,"excerpt":"During the debate over the ACA, the Republicans loooooved to talk about \"Death Panels.\" The idea was that any sort of national health insurance scheme would, perforce, require the federal government to ration the finite resources of the medical care system, and so there would have to be federal \"Death\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;~PlusPosts&quot;","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":132995,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/03\/07\/morphing-the-aca-into-the-ahca.html","url_meta":{"origin":134702,"position":1},"title":"Morphing the ACA into the AHCA","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 7-Mar-17 11:27am","format":false,"excerpt":"Because that's not at all intentionally confusing ...So reading some analysis of the proposed GOP health insurance plan has been a bit confusing, but a few points stand out:1. Mandates change to \"personal responsibility\" -- Which sounds fine and upstanding and all-American, but ends up inevitably breaking the system (again),\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;~PlusPosts&quot;","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":138418,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2019\/03\/26\/trump-finds-a-new-avenue-of-attack-on-the-aca.html","url_meta":{"origin":134702,"position":2},"title":"Trump finds a new avenue of attack on the ACA","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 26-Mar-19 12:05am","format":false,"excerpt":"He couldn't do it through Congress, and hasn't quite managed it by Executive Order, so ...","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Economic Justice&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Economic Justice","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law\/economic-justice"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/Donald-Trump-in-front-of-a-flag.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":132133,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2016\/12\/01\/to-provide-fewer-human-services-for-health.html","url_meta":{"origin":134702,"position":3},"title":"To provide fewer Human Services for Health","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 1-Dec-16 7:02am","format":false,"excerpt":"Getting rid of the Affordable Care Act has been the top priority for the GOP since it was passed (heck, probably before that). With control of both chambers of Congress and the White House, something along those lines is likely.Which is a bit of a challenge for the GOP, because\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;~PlusPosts&quot;","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":134734,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/09\/18\/reminder-gop-hasnt-stopped-trying-repeal-aca.html","url_meta":{"origin":134702,"position":4},"title":"Again, a reminder that the GOP hasn&#8217;t stopped trying to repeal the ACA","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 18-Sep-17 11:09am","format":false,"excerpt":"Everyone sort of went back to sleep on this one after their try failed in July. But despite an actual bipartisan effort to fix ACA problems, a key group of GOP Senators is back at it, pushing a bill forward as fast as they can so that they can get\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;~PlusPosts&quot;","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/unnamed-21.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":133804,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/07\/05\/health-insurance-reform-fact-check-round-up.html","url_meta":{"origin":134702,"position":5},"title":"Health Insurance Reform Fact-Check Round-Up","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 5-Jul-17 11:35am","format":false,"excerpt":"The WaPo and New York Times [1] offer some consolidated fact-checking against GOP Senate and White House arguments against the ACA and in favor of their New, Improved AHCA insurance reform plans (\"Now with 9% fewer people losing their insurance than the last version!\").From the NYT [https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2017\/07\/03\/us\/politics\/misleading-republican-claims-health-care.html] on -- whether\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;~PlusPosts&quot;","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134702","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=134702"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134702\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":134711,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134702\/revisions\/134711"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/134710"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=134702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=134702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=134702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}