Republicans On The Affordable Care Act
In the 2012 Republican Part Platform, Republicans spoke out against the Affordable Care Act, stating that the Democrats used it more as an assertion of power than they used it to improve health care conditions in this country, and in doing so they detrimentally damaged the health of this nation. The Republican Party views the requirement for United States citizens to purchase health insurance as an attack on the Constitution. They believe that the financial burden it would bring upon the country, and specifically on individual states, through the expansion of Medicaid is unsustainable, and will harm the nation as a whole. The act was so firmly opposed by the Republican Party that not a single Republican voted for the final version that Obama signed into law.
Obamacare Repeal Requires Replacement After 2016 Election
Republicans had spent eight years trashing the Democratic health care overhaul, but now that they were in power, they ran up against the same political winds that forced ObamaCare tolook like such a political Frankenstein’s monster to begin with. Conservatives wanted a complete and total repeal of the law; moderative Republicans wanted to protect certain pieces of it.
Do Americans Like Socialism
In a list of ten ideologies;YouGov;put to Americans, socialism ranked fifth in terms of favorability. Three in ten Americans have a favorable view of socialism, while 47% do not. Another 13% arent sure, and 10% dont know what the term means in the first place.;
Least;favorable;are totalitarianism , fascism and authoritarianism .;
Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the popularity;of self-proclaimed;democratic socialist Bernie Sanders,;Democrats take a more;favorable;view of socialism, and Republicans less so. Half of Democrats have a;favorable;view, while just over a quarter;;have an;unfavorable;one. Among Republicans,;11% have a;favorable;view and 75% an;unfavorable;one.;
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Nbc News/commonwealth Fund Health Care Poll
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Three in 10 likely voters are worried about being able to afford health insurance and costs for prescription drugs and other health care over the next year; among most worried are Democrats, blacks, Hispanics, and people earning under $50,000
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Nearly 80 percent of likely voters believe reducing health care costs should be a high priority for the next president
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Three in 10 likely voters are worried about being able to afford health insurance and costs for prescription drugs and other health care over the next year; among most worried are Democrats, blacks, Hispanics, and people earning under $50,000
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Nearly 80 percent of likely voters believe reducing health care costs should be a high priority for the next president
In next weeks Super Tuesday primaries, voters in 14 states and American Samoa will cast their ballots for the Democratic and Republican presidential nominees. Health care has emerged as one of the top issues in the 2020 election, at times dominating the Democratic presidential debates.
Controlling Drug Prices Top Issue For Republicans
Controlling drug prices is a top health care priority of the Trump administration, says James C.
Capretta, a resident fellow and the Milton Friedman Chair at the right-leaning think tank, the American Enterprise Institute. In the healthcare sphere, drug pricing would be number one, he said. Then other issues, such as price transparency and health reimbursement accounts, would follow behind that.
If Trump wins re-election and the Republicans control at least the U.S. Senate, then its safe to say that past will be prologue for 2021 if not longer, Capretta observes.
The agenda for Republicans is almost certainly going to remain as it has been since 2017, he notes. By that I mean there will be a focus on administrative action related to loosening regulations.
If there is a second Trump administration, executive orders and administrative changes are likely to be the main tools of its healthcare policies because Democrats are expected to retain control of the U.S. House of Representatives regardless of how the presidential vote turns out and whether the Republicans keep their current 53-47 hold on the Senate.
The idea of any kind of Trump legislative initiatives making it through the Congress seems quite remote, Capretta continues. Moreover, I don’t think they have a legislative health agenda that they would be ready and wanting to push as a priority.
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Republicans And Democrats Think With Different Parts Of Their Brains
American liberals and conservatives use different parts of their brains when assessing risks, a new study finds.
A new study says that the brains of American Democrats and Republicans are wired differently, and that they use entirely different sections when making risky decisions.
Let the debates commence.
Liberals show a higher level of activity in the left insula, a portion of the brain associated with self-awareness, social cues, addiction, emotional processing, empathy, and even orgasms .
Conservatives, on the other hand, tend to weigh risk in the right amygdala, an area of the brain that aids in survival, including reacting to violations of personal space and controlling social interaction, fear, and aggression .
These conclusions were drawn from a study of 82 people performed by political scientists and neuroscientists at the University of Exeter and the University of California, San Diego. The study was published Wednesday in the scientific journal PLOS ONE.
George W Bush On Health Care
During his time in office, George W. Bush advocated for HIV/AIDS relief, HIV prevention, and abstinence-only education. He implemented the ABC method of HIV prevention . He also worked towards HIV relief and prevention through efforts that emphasized regular testing, early diagnosis, ongoing monitoring, and the elimination of HIV/AIDS in newborns. He also increased the amount spent on abstinence-only education. Bush also restricted federal funding for stem cell research and created a ban on human cloning and the creation of human embryos that were solely for experimental purposes. During his time in office, he also restored a policy that banned the use of controlled substances for assisted suicide.
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Trump And Republican Health Care Reform: The Republicans’ Irrational Opposition To Medicaid
President Trump and almost all Congressional Republicans have consistently opposed Obamacare’s expansion of Medicaid.
Their opposition is irrational.
It is also unpopular with voters. In dark red states like Nebraska, Idaho and Utah voters recently went over the heads of their Republican legislators and governors by approving referendums to expand the program. And, Kansas is about to become the 37th state to expand Medicaid under Obamacare after a bipartisan agreement between the Democratic governor and Republican leaders in the legislature.
While Obamacare’s individual health insurance reforms and subsidies have been a disaster for the middle class , the Medicaid expansion in the states that have approved it has covered millions of people that would never have been covered otherwiseat a cost that could never have been less.
Republican opposition has centered around a number of arguments. Let’s take a look at each of them.
We can’t afford such a massive expansion of the welfare state and the impact that would have on deficit spending.
Our rapidly exploding deficits are a big issue we seem to have recently forgotten about.
But blowing up the deficit over health care didn’t bother Congressional Republicans in 2003 when they created the Medicare Part D drug benefit and didn’t pay for it adding $700 billion to the deficit over the following ten years . But that unpaid-for entitlement expansion helped a big Republican constituencyseniors.
Why Do Republicans Oppose Obamacare
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REPUBLICANS have campaigned against Obamacare ever since it was signed into law in 2010.;
But with a change in presidency ahead, the Supreme Court is likely to leave in place the bulk of Obamacare, including;key protections for pre-existing health conditions.
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Challenges Under The Affordable Care Act
Also known as Obamacare, the Affordable Care Act became law in March 2010. The measure was an attempt by former President Obama to give every American access to affordable health insurance. At the time, 39 Democrats and 178 House Republicans voted against the ACA. The remaining 218 Democrats in the House voted for the ACA. The Senate passed the ACA with a 68-30 vote, with 68 Democrats and two Independents voting yea and 39 Republicans voting nay. The party-line vote exposed the ideological differences between the two sides on healthcare.
Despite widespread support among Democrats for the ACA, Obamacare has not lived up to some of its hype, and even those on the left agree that the law hasnt accomplished its full potential over the last seven years.
Here are some of the challenges that Obamacare faced:
- Many Americans found it difficult to understand why the law required them to acquire insurance or face a fine. To further compound the problem, most people did not understand how the law imposed the fine. Plenty of taxpayers were surprised when they got charged an additional fee during tax time.
Is The Supreme Court Likely To Save Obamacare
The Supreme Court is likely to leave in place the bulk of Obamacare, including key protections for pre-existing health conditions.
Conservative justices John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh appeared in two hours of arguments to be unwilling to strike down the entire law a long-held Republican goal.
The courts three liberal justices are almost certain to vote to uphold the law in its entirety and presumably would form a majority by joining a decision that cut away only the mandate, which now has no financial penalty attached to it.
Leading a group of Democratic-controlled states, California and the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives are urging the court to leave the law in place.
A decision is expected by late spring.
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Obama And Trump Healthcare Policies Compared
There could not be a more radical divide between administrations than there is between these two. The Obama administration worked against almost insurmountable opposition from the GOP in order to pass the ACA. The Trump Administrations quest is to dismantle everything the Obama Administration has done. They even have court cases pending in order to do so.
Republicans Have A Health Plan Finally
The House Republican Study Committee has come out with a viable plan.
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For the past ten years Republicans in Congress have been largely AWOL on health care.
If memory serves, there has never been a hearing to showcase the victims of Obamacare. Nor has there been a hearing to show how sensible reforms could make the lives of those victims better.
When it came to legislation, the GOP only had two ideas: either abolish Obamacare entirely or toss it to the states. Neither approach actually solved a health care problem. They just allowed Republicans in Washington to wash their hands of the issue and pass the problems along to someone else.
Until now.
The House Republican Study Committee has accepted the challenge and delivered. In a 68-page document, it identifies the worse problems in our health care system and shows how they can be solved.
The proposals are bold, impactful and easy to understand. Here is a quick summary.
Personal and portable health insurance. In an ideal world, if people like the insurance they get from an employer, they would be able to take it with them from job to job and in and out of the labor market. Under the Obama administration, this practice was not only illegal, employers who bought individually owned insurance for their employees faced huge fines.
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Religion And The Belief In God Is Vital To A Strong Nation
Republicans are generally accepting only of the Judeo-Christian belief system. For most Republicans, religion is absolutely vital in their political beliefs and the two cannot be separated. Therefore, separation of church and state is not that important to them. In fact, they believe that much of what is wrong has been caused by too much secularism.
Those are the four basic Republican tenets: small government, local control, the power of free markets, and Christian authority. Below are other things they believe that derive from those four ideas.
Opinionwe Want To Hear What You Think Please Submit A Letter To The Editor
Despite what they say on television about protecting the most vulnerable, one by one the Republican senators are all getting in line behind Trump’s Supreme Court nominee. We don’t yet know who that is, but we can assume how he or she will vote on Obamacare.
People with pre-existing conditions like me are again terrified of losing our insurance, this time in the midst of a pandemic. We’ve lived through years of scary uncertainty and now months of sheltering in place. Enough is enough. We are all health care voters now. We’ll see whether our wavering senators are health care voters, too.
Laura Packard is a Denver-based health care advocate and cancer survivor. She is the founder of Health Care Voices, a non-profit grassroots organization for adults with serious medical conditions, co-chair of Health Care Voter, and runs the pharma accountability campaign for Hero Action Fund. Follow her on Twitter:
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Groups Opposing The American Health Care Act
Over 50 organizations oppose the proposed healthcare plan that will make Americans will pay more for less.;The list includes nurses, doctors, hospitals, teachers, churches, and more. You can see a few here:;
AARP: AARP opposes this legislation, as introduced, that would weaken Medicare, leaving the door open to a voucher program that shifts costs and risks to seniors.
Before people even reach retirement age, big insurance companies could be allowed to charge them an age tax that adds up to thousands of dollars more per year. Older Americans need affordable health care services and prescriptions. This plan goes in the opposite direction, increasing insurance premiums for older Americans and not doing anything to lower drug costs.
On top of the hefty premium increase for consumers, big drug companies and other special interests get a sweetheart deal.
Finally, Medicaid cuts could impact people of all ages and put at risk the health and safety of 17.4 million children and adults with disabilities and seniors by eliminating much-needed services that allow individuals to live independently in their homes and communities. Although no one believes the current health care system is perfect, this harmful legislation would make health care less secure and less affordable.
AARP stands ready to work with both parties on legislation that puts Americans first, not the special interests.
That just wont do.
That is, above all, why physicians must be involved in this debate.
Universal Coverage Vs Market
Democrats generally continue to support the Affordable Care Act , but would like to fix its flaws and generally improve the law. Democrats want to empower states to use innovation waivers to create their own approaches to healthcare reform that are as good asor better thanthe current system. Many Democrats also support fixing the ACA’s “family glitch” by basing affordability calculations for employer-sponsored coverage on family premiums rather than employee-only premiums, and most also support expanding premium subsidies to higher income ranges in order to soften the subsidy cliff.
But increasingly, Democrats are also getting behind the idea of a transition to some sort of universal coverage system. All of the Democrats who ran for the 2020 presidential nomination were in favor of universal coverage, although they had differing opinions on whether we should transition entirely to a single-payer system or use a combination of government-run and private health coverage .
Biden’s healthcare proposal also calls for an end to surprise balance billing, premium-free coverage under the public option for people who are caught in the Medicaid coverage gap , and allowing Medicare to negotiate prices with drug companies.
The Republican Party has not rolled out a new healthcare platform for 2020, and is instead utilizing the same platform they had in 2016. So in general, their approach can be expected to be the same as it has been for the past several years.
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Paging Cooler Heads Can We Meet Somewhere In The Middle Please
The solution to healthcare reform isnt easy, but it lies somewhere in the middle of these extreme ideologies. GOP leadership has been working on swaying members of its own party, but perhaps a different approach one that includes leftwing support would fare better in the long run. The ACA was passed without conservative support, and now, seven years later, the country is on the brink of a healthcare overhaul once more. Unless politicians work toward reaching middle ground, its unlikely that reform will be effective regardless of whos in charge.
Premium Subsidies And Affordability
The ACA’s premium subsidies were designed to keep health insurance affordable for people who buy their own coverage in the individual market. Premiums for individual market plans increased alarmingly in 2017 and 2018, although they were much more stable in 2019 and 2020, and rate changes for 2021 appear to be mostly modest. But premiums for people who aren’t eligible for premium subsidies can still amount to a substantial portion of their income.
The individual market is a very small segment of the population, however, and rate increases have been much more muted across the full population .
Democrats have proposed various strategies for making coverage and care affordable. Joe Biden’s healthcare proposal includes larger premium subsidies that would be based on the cost of a benchmark gold plan and based on having people pay only 8.5% of their income for that plan . Biden’s proposal would also eliminate the ACA’s income cap for premium subsidy eligibility and provide subsidies to anyone who would otherwise have to pay more than 8.5% of their income for a benchmark gold plan. This would eliminate the “subsidy cliff” that currently exists for some enrollees.
The 2020 Democratic Party platform calls for a “public option” health plan that would compete with private health insurance carriers in an effort to bring down prices, and lowering the eligibility age for Medicare from 65 to 60.
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