Anyone ElseTerrified about Repeal of ACA Bill
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thisiknow: Part of the problem is that they have to get 3 entities to "deal" on legislation: House, Senate and Trump. Senate seems to be saying they won't take up healthcare issues. That's no good cause I think there is, amazingly, some common ground between the House and White House.....if anyone were inclined to compromise. I was amazed that they managed to pass the USMCA passed. And the defense spending bill passed the House Wednesday. Oddly enough, defense spending authorization usually includes quite a bit of the Federal money to fund breast cancer research. (If someone has background on whether that was in Wed's bill, we'd love to know.) I get alerts when there is activity on some of the healthcare bills. There has been a remarkable amount going on. But too little is getting all the way through.
Here's a link to the House side National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for all you policy wonks:
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From what I understand in the reading, lowering drug prices could raise Medicare copays and the president doesn't want that happening before the next election.
Verma and White House Domestic Policy Council Director Joe Grogan argued to Trump that the nearly $200 billion price tag on Azar's signature drug rebate proposal, which had called for ending drugmakers' rebates to insurance middlemen, was exorbitant and would raise Medicare premiums just before the election. Trump subsequently killed the proposal.
No matter what side of the political fence you're on, for politicians, it's all about making the right deals at the right time (often close to election) to get voters to swing your way.
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Lumpie... the Senate Republicans want to fix Healthcare but... I doubt any of us are going to see any movement on this until the years-long impeachment circus is over. There are 31 in the House that may well suffer during the Election if they continue to value impeachment over Healthcare.
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Trump doesn't care about anything except HIM. Can't wait to see his sorry arse impeached. nuff said
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That's the attitude holding up progress and God knows we need progress.
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What does "progress" mean to you? House Dems have sent hundreds of bills completely unrelated to impeachment to the Senate. McConnell has them all stashed away in an undisclosed location.
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They shouldn't have to raise Medicare co-pays
Dr. Rand Paul's Summer 2019 Edition of "The Waste Report" |
https://www.paul.senate.gov/wastereportThe federal government wasted Americans' tax dollars as it...
Attempted to increase trust between Tunisian political parties and citizens (State) .......... $2,000,000
Converted an abandoned mental hospital into DHS HQ (GSA and DHS) .......... $2,120,040,355.35
Supported "Green Growth"
in Peru (USAID) .................................................................... $10,000,000
Fixed vehicles New York City falsely claimed Superstorm Sandy damaged (FEMA) ….. $5,303,624
Increased the
capacity of the Pakistani film industry (State) …………………………..... $100,000
Paid out billions from Medicare in improper payments (CMS) ………………..… $48,000,000,000
Taught English and IT skills at Madrassas (State) ..................................................................... $150,000
Studied frog mating calls in Panama (NSF) …………………………………………….. $466,991
Paid for Google Scholar searches in Hawaii (NSF, NOAA, USFS, DOI, NASA) …… $51,722,107
Paid for property confiscated in Afghanistan by the ANDSF (USACE)
…...
..................... $325,485 ____________________________________
TAXPAYER DOLLARS WASTED about $50,190,108,562.00
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If anyone is interested:
House Members Solicit Public Input on "Cures 2.0" Bill
Representatives Fred Upton (R-MI) and Diana DeGette (D-CO) released a request for public input on a potential new bill they are calling "Cures 2.0" which would build on the 21st Century Cures Act. The duo says this legislation would focus on improving patients' access to digital health products and new medical therapies. The bill would speed up insurance coverage by Medicare, Medicaid, and private payers for new FDA-approved drugs and devices, and would increase the use of real-world evidence in FDA's regulatory approval process. The proposed legislation also aims to improve family caregivers' health literacy. They requested input on the bill. Please send your input and feedback to cures2@mail.house.gov by December 16, 2019.
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Congress Reaches Deal on "Surprise Billing" Bill
On Sunday evening, leaders of several key health care committees announced they had come to an agreement on "Surprise Billing" legislation. As Vox reports, the legislation may be included in the end-of-year government spending bill that must pass before December 20. Now that the committees have hashed out a deal, it falls on House and Senate leaders to figure out the path forward. However, just yesterday, the House Ways and Means Committee on Wednesday put out its own, "rival" proposal to protect patients from surprise medical bills. This proposal could throw a wrench into a speedy passage of the deal struck last weekend. The measure from Ways and Means would take a different approach in that it would first let insurers and doctors try to work out payment on their own, and if they cannot come to agreement, an arbitration process would begin. Full text was not yet available. The Hill reports that the Energy and Commerce proposal, in contrast, relies in large part on essentially setting a payment rate based on the average price for that service in the geographic area.Another article on surprise billing here:
Congress's new plan to end surprise medical bills, explained
After a grim prognosis a few weeks ago, there is fresh optimism that surprise medical bills can be a thing of the past.
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Potential Impact of Texas v. U.S. Decision on Key Provisions of the Affordable Care Act
Article includes a "table {that} summarizes the major provisions of the ACA, illustrating the breadth of its changes to the health care system and public attitudes towards those changes."
{Concise and well organized review of the provisions of the ACA, number of people protected and, in some cases, finacial impacts of these provisions.}
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Open enrollment extended until 3 p.m. on Dec 18, 2019!
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Individual mandate ruled unconstitutional, ACA in limbo
18 Dec 2019
A federal appeals court Wednesday struck down part of the Affordable Care Act, ruling that its requirement that most Americans carry insurance is unconstitutional while sending back to a lower court the question of whether the rest of the law can remain without it.
The decision leaves the fate of the rest of the law in limbo, catapulting questions about insurance coverage and consumer protections to the forefront of the 2020 races.
Schumer: "Tonight's ruling is a sharp reminder to Americans that ... vital health care protections, especially protections for people with preexisting conditions, are in grave danger."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/appeals-court-rules-acas-individual-mandate-unconstitutional-lower-court-to-decide-whether-rest-of-law-can-stand-without-it/2019/12/18/3443fd3e-c03c-11e9-b873-63ace636af08_story.html?utm_campaign=to_your_health&utm_medium=Email&utm_source=Newsletter&wpisrc=nl_tyh&wpmm=10 -
This isn't exactly ACA ...and it's a little wonky.... but has to do with changes in the healthcare "space." It is a recorded/poscast type commentary by Joseph Wiedermann, MD, an interventional cardiologist, who was forced out by his hospital owned practice and accepted a position in Guam. It speaks to the "corporatization" of medical practice. There is an interesting reference to the way physican-owned practices vs hospital owned practices are "reimbursed" (paid) for services rendered. The segment starts at 13:55 - but the rest is interesting, too.
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Big Returns on Healthcare IPOs
Last year was a pretty good one for investors in healthcare companies with initial public offerings, Axios reports, with two-thirds trading above their opening prices by year-end.
Investing equally in all 68 companies would have yielded a 47% return; for 16 companies, their stock prices doubled.
Many of the companies are biotechs, and several of them benefitted from promising but very early clinical trial data, Axios reported.
Check out the infographic to see the 24 companies that lost value and the 44 that rose.
{Not ACA, per se, but related to $ and healthcare. FYI.}
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Supreme Court refuses to fast-track a challenge to the Affordable Care Act
The Supreme Court on Tuesday denied a motion to fast-track a challenge to the Affordable Care Act so that it could be considered this term.
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The Trump administration is actively fighting the ACA in court to have it struck down. He could care less about preexisting conditions. He lies because he can
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The political discussions on health care are scary because "care" seems to get lost in the discussion. We the people will lose, and big money will win. But do not give up the fight. There was an article in the news recently that the Trump administration wants to cut funding to Medicare and Medicaid. I wrote a letter to my representatives about adding lymphedema care to Medicare, and their response was pathetic. https://www.stepup-speakout.org/
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This is the most recent article I could find om Trump and Medicare. Nowhere does it say he’s trying to cut it. In another article it says he wants to stop the waste in Medicare but that is not cutting it. This is from CNBC a lefty organization.
Trump signs executive order on Medicare, says he won't let Democrats steal your health care
PUBLISHED THU, OCT 3 20192:50 PM EDTUPDATED THU, OCT 3 20195:01 PM EDT
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/03/trump-signs-execut...0 -
Targeting 'Medicare For All' Proposals, Trump Lays Out His Vision For Medicare
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The NY Times had an article saying he is looking to cut Medicare and social security earlier this week. Of course not now in election year but second term it's on the table.
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Trump Administration Strengthens Medicare by Reducing Provider Burden and Valuing Time Spent with Patients
Nov 01, 2019 eHealthLegislationPhysiciansQualityTrump Administration Strengthens Medicare by Reducing Provider Burden and Valuing Time Spent with Patients
Physician Fee Schedule and Quality Payment Program Final Rule Allows Clinicians to Spend More Time Delivering High Quality Care for PatientsToday, the Trump Administration and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) finalized major policy changes that implement key provisions of President Trump's Executive Order on Protecting and Improving Medicare for Our Nation's Seniors that will reduce clinical burden, ensure appropriate payment for clinicians, and enable them to provide their patients with high quality care. This final rule builds on the Trump Administration's and CMS's efforts to secure and improve Medicare and establish a patient-driven healthcare system that focuses on improving health outcomes. It is projected to save clinicians 2.3 million hours per year in burden reduction.
"President Trump has a particular vision for healthcare: a system that's affordable, patient-centric, and treats you like a person, not a number. CMS is working to deliver that by freeing up clinicians to focus on their patients rather than on paperwork," said HHS Secretary Alex Azar. "Historic simplifications to billing requirements mean that clinicians will be able to focus on recording the information that's most important to keeping a patient healthy. As we move toward a system that pays more and more providers for outcomes rather than procedures, we look forward to freeing clinicians from even more of these burdens."
Read more at:
https://www.cms.gov/newsroom/press-releases/trump-...0 -
It's wrong to claim Trump budget cuts $845 billion from Medicare
But dig deeper, and the numbers change. First, Trump's plan takes two hefty pieces of Medicare — extra payments to hospitals that serve a lot of uninsured patients and funds for teaching ...
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Private Insurance Goldmine
Private health insurance is the big "pot of gold" that executives and lobbyists at last week's J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference are chasing, Axios reported.
Costs in that market keep going up: more than 160 million Americans have private insurance, and 2018 saw nearly 7% growth in per-person spending.
While many J.P. Morgan conference participants expressed concerns about the affordability of healthcare, they then turned around and promised investors healthy returns again this year. Executives from Intermountain Healthcare, for instance, noted that "the number one cause of personal bankruptcy is our industry" before touting the hospital's strong margins.
And despite public pressure to reduce healthcare costs, most politicians defend the status quo of companies reaching into insurers' deep pockets, Axios reported. "Most in the industry don't see the ballooning spending within that market as a problem," the article stated.
{wow.}
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It would be better if politicians weren’t allowed to accept money from insurance companies and doctors weren’t allowed to accept payments from drug companies.
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KHN's 'What The Health?': SCOTUS Punts On ACA Case — For Now
Four health news reporters discuss the Supreme Court's decision to decline hearing the ACA lawsuit right now. Tune in to hear what that may mean for the future of the law.
Listen here or read brief highlights:
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Marijen: I agree!
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The NYT published an article 22 Jan 2020, probably the one Artista928 referenced. Here are exceprts:
Trump Opens Door to Cuts to Medicare and Other Entitlement Programs
The president signaled a willingness to scale back Medicare, a shift from his 2016 platform of protecting entitlement programs.
President Trump suggested on Wednesday that he would be willing to consider cuts to social safety-net programs like Medicare to reduce the federal deficit if he wins a second term...Asked in an interview with CNBC if cuts to entitlements would ever be on his plate, Mr. Trump answered yes. "At some point they will be," Mr. Trump said, before pointing to United States economic growth. "At the right time, we will take a look at that." Mr. Trump suggested that curbing spending on Medicare, the government health care program for the elderly, was a possibility. "We're going to look," he said.
The president has already proposed cuts for some safety-net programs. His last budget proposal called for a total of $1.9 trillion in cost savings from mandatory safety-net programs, like Medicaid and Medicare. It also called for spending $26 billion less on Social Security programs, the federal retirement program, including a $10 billion cut to the Social Security Disability Insurance program, which provides benefits to disabled workers.
{The administration recently closed public comments on a policy change that would involve adding a strata to the classifications of those on SSDI. It would allow for more frequent review of some beneficiaries. It is unclear whether compassionate allowance cases might be affected by that policy.}
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yep. He's got nothing to lose 2nd term so he'll cut our so called entitlements which WE paid into! I want a refund then!
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Why it's so hard to tell if Trump really is open to cutting entitlements like Medicare
Analysis by Christine Romans, CNN Business Was he serious? Or just riffing?Friday, January 24th 2020, 12:11 PM ESTUpdated:
Friday, January 24th 2020, 12:26 PM ESTAnalysis by Christine Romans, CNN BusinessWas he serious? Or just riffing?
Politicos, market watchers and deficit hawks are trying to figure out if the president really opened the door this week to entitlement reform.
Asked if entitlements are "on his plate," the president told CNBC's Joe Kernen Wednesday, "At some point they will be." The president said strong US growth made addressing entitlements "the easiest of all things."
Follow this story to get email or text alerts from NBC2 when there is a future article following this storyline.Follow this storyCue the Democrats.
"The president promised that unlike other Republicans, he wouldn't touch Social Security, and Medicare," said Senator Chuck Schumer during a press conference to discuss the president's impeachment trial. "He's already broken that promise and gone after Medicare. Now it looks like Social Security is in the president's crosshairs as well."
Just as the White House was dangling an election year tease for new tax cuts, the president made different headlines by casually touching the third rail of American politics.
"Social Security reform is a virtually impossible sell, and Democrats are smacking their lips -- Trump has given them an issue," wrote political economist Greg Valliere in a note to his clients.
Trump had promised during the election that a super-strong Trump economy growing at 4 percent would fix the long-term problems for big government outlays like Social Security and Medicare. (The economy instead is growing around 2 percent.)
Some think the president tried to climb down Thursday with a tweet he would "save" Social Security from Democrats who want to "destroy" it.
But it hasn't quieted the debate.
"Democrats in this town have been hand-wringing about their prospects in the presidential race," writes Valliere, DC-based chief US policy strategist at AGF Investments. "Las Vegas oddsmakers have made Donald Trump the clear favorite. Inexplicably, he gave Democrats a major opening this week -- Social Security, the third rail that politicians never want to touch."
It's unclear if the White House is serious about entitlement reform or if the president was just, well, talking.
What is clear: the combination of an economy growing at just about 2% the president's 2017 tax cuts, and a huge spending bill, have sent the deficit soaring. The budget deficit has already topped $1 trillion in the Trump Administration, and grew another 12% from the year before in the first quarter of this fiscal year.
Even if entitlement reform were a priority, the balance of power makes it unlikely.
"If re-elected, the President will pursue more tax cuts and will not pursue significant entitlement reform," economist Mark Zandi of Moody's Analytics tells CNN. It "wouldn't happen unless the (Republicans) captured the House and held onto the Senate, which at this point seems unlikely," Zandi says. "If President Trump is re-elected, we can expect $1 trillion plus budget deficits for the foreseeable future, and much large deficits when the next recession hits."
Politics aside, there's a case for slowing the growth of entitlement programs like Social Security, says Valliere. Congress periodically considers reforms to the cost of living adjustments, raising the age of eligibility, increasing Social Security taxes, means-testing benefits, and tightening eligibility rules. But cowed by public outcry and lack of consensus, never acts. And the deficit hawks in the traditional Republican party appear to be in hiding.
"Chances of enactment are close to zero," in a second Trump administration, says Valliere.
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I pray it's just him talking.
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