They’re finally doing it and voting on some dismantling of ObamaCare. It’s certainly not “repeal and replace,” but it’s better than nothing. Byron York reports the vote itself will happen at 130p ET, right during Tammy Radio!

There was an $8B infusion into the bill addressing the issue of premium costs relating to pre-existing conditions, so that may have done the trick. This was done, of course, to placate “moderate” Republicans. This is what happens when government gets involved, costs go up and the situation gets worse.

Remember, whatever comes out of the House then has to go to the Senate and then reconciliation to bring the two versions together, at which point it would be sent to the president.

Here are some highlights from Fox News about what’s in the bill. But this is a small sampling. It’s 1667 pages, and wasn’t posted 3 days before the vote as promised by the GOP. It seems they have the votes right now and don’t want any more time to go by which could peel away some of those votes.

This after 7 years of campaigning with promises to repeal, and the president’s campaign for the last year saying this was a top priority. I think every step to killing it is good, but the ultimate goal is to remove government involvement. If we don’t, the healthcare system will only get worse, and we’ll all end up as a gigantic VA.

This action by the way is key to President Trump’s economic promises, especially regarding growth. It’s a huge tax cut in itself, and will spur business growth and hiring. But we can’t stop there!

Via Fox News.

The bill has gone through some changes since an earlier version was pulled from the floor in March in the face of flagging support.

Here’s what’s the bill does:

-Ends tax penalties, under the original Affordable Care Act, for individuals who don’t buy insurance coverage and larger employers who don’t offer coverage. Instead, insurers would apply a 30 percent surcharge to customers who’ve let coverage lapse for more than 63 days in the past year.

-Ends tax increases on higher-earning people and a range of industry groups including insurers, drug makers and medical device manufacturers.

-Cuts the Medicaid program for low-income people and lets states impose work requirements on Medicaid recipients. Forbids states that haven’t already expanded Medicaid to do so. Changes Medicaid from an open-ended program that covers beneficiaries’ costs to one that gives states fixed amounts of money annually.

-Overhauls insurance subsidy system from one based largely on incomes and premium costs to a system of tax credits. The credits would rise with customers’ ages and, like the subsidies, could be used toward premium costs.

-Lets states get federal waivers allowing insurers to charge older customers higher premiums than younger ones by as much as they’d like. Obama’s law limits the difference to a 3-1 ratio. States also can get waivers exempting insurers from providing consumers with required coverage of specified health services, and from Obama’s prohibition against insurers charging higher premiums to people with pre-existing health problems, but only if the person has had a gap in insurance coverage.

-States could only get the latter waivers if they have mechanisms like high-risk pools that are supposed to help cover people with serious, expensive-to-treat diseases. A newly added provision would give another $8 billion over five years to help states finance their high-risk pools. Despite criticism that the waivers strip protections, House Speaker Paul Ryan’s office maintains that since states that take the waivers would have to set up the high-risk pools, “insurance companies cannot deny you coverage based on pre-existing conditions.”

-Blocks federal payments to Planned Parenthood for a year.

-Retains requirement that family policies cover grown children to age 26.

This section is for comments from tammybruce.com's community of registered readers. Please don't assume that Tammy agrees with or endorses any particular comment just because she lets it stand.

You must be logged in to post a comment.