"No two people see the external world in exactly the same way. To every separate person a thing is what he thinks it is -- in other words, not a thing, but a think." - Penelope Fitzgerald
THE SCHLONG GOODBYE 6/20/2011CNN, Fox News and MSNBC cut away from Nancy Pelosi's news conference after she announces that there will be no Weiner talk.
BAD NEWS BAIER 3/31/2011Bret Baier needs to be warned that bias is seeping into Fox News after his boss admits to mischievously speculating about Obama.
TONE DEF POETRY JAM 5/11/2011A White House invitation to Grammy-winning vegetarian Common sparks controversy at Fox News.
CORP CONSTITUENCY 5/11/2011Stephen wants to know why Viacom won't let him talk about his Super PAC when Karl Rove and Dick Morris can do it on Fox News.
An example of how media gets the lead wrong; Headline is wrong - lead should be "WAY More Than 28,600 People Are Estimated To Die Under Trumps Murder By Government Plan" or something like that. CBO: New health care bill would leave 32 million uninsured The president threatens and cajoles Republican senators as the CBO says the new, repeal-only plan will leave 32 million people uninsured and double premiums. Duration: 6:38
This is what the stories should look like...
Donald Trump's Death PanelBefore Obamacare, thousands of uninsured Americans died every year because they didn't receive timely care.
Not long ago, Americans learned that the average life expectancy for white people in this country—those most likely to have voted for Donald Trump—actually declined for the first time in many years. The pathologies and frustrations believed to have driven that decline may have motivated the tiny handful of votes that gave Trump his Electoral College victory.
But not long after their euphoria over his inauguration fades, they are going to learn why his administration is so likely to drive those statistics in the wrong direction. Despite his promises to protect Social Security and Medicare—and his vow to replace the Affordable Care Act with "something much better"—Trump's cabinet appointees and his allies in Congress plan ruinous changes to those programs. And that will mean ruin, and in thousands of cases death, for the mostly white and working-class people who depend so heavily on them.
Unless the Republicans come up with a plausible bill to replace Obamacare—a challenge that has eluded them since 2009—millions of their constituents will lose the health insurance they have only recently gained, and yes, thousands of those people will die next year.
Back when President Obama's health reform plan first passed, Republicans and their media echoes warned loudly about mythical "death panels" embedded in his legislation. The voters who believed that nonsense are about to meet the real death panels, led by House Speaker Paul Ryan, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and Rep. Tom Price, the Georgia Republican slated to head the Department of Health and Human Services.
This is not hyperbole: Before the advent of Obamacare, tens of thousands of uninsured Americans died every year because they didn't receive timely care. Ten years ago, one reputable study estimated that as many as 137,000 Americans had perished prematurely due to lack of health coverage between 2005 and 2010, or more than twice as many as died in the Vietnam War. The Institute of Medicine has estimated that uninsured adults are 25 percent more likely to die prematurely than those with coverage, with uninsured adults between 55 and 64 years old faring even worse. For them, being uninsured is the third most significant cause of death, behind only heart disease and cancer.
Those estimates don't include the victims of insurance company profiteering who will die if the repeal of Obamacare undoes its protection of patients suffering from "previously existing conditions." Exposed to the tender mercies of corporate actuaries, thousands of them will lose their coverage, watch their families driven to destitution, and many of them will die, too.
That isn't supposed to be what happens under President Trump, who declared in many interviews and debates his determination to provide better and cheaper health insurance "for everybody, let it be for everybody." But by appointing a far-right ideologue like Price to run health policy, Trump effectively violated that promise before even taking his oath of office. Working with Ryan and the Republican majority in both houses of Congress, Price means to destroy Obamacare, slash Medicare and decimate Medicaid.
The truth about the current incarnation of the Republican Party, which voters ought to have learned long ago, is that its attitudes toward working Americans of all descriptions range from careless to merciless. If not every Republican shares the "let 'em die" position on health care screamed by a GOP debate audience in 2012, all too many believe that government has no role in ensuring that every American is insured—even though that would save money as well as lives. However ridiculous Trump's promises may seem, his pledge to protect Americans who depend on Obamacare, Medicare and Medicaid is a matter of life or death. Unless he changes course now, we may see a lot of red caps at funerals for people who lost their insurance and died much too soon.
Another example of a better lead for the healthcare MurderDeathKill story...
DR. STEFFIEWOOLHANDLER: We reviewed the world’s scientific literature on the relationship between health insurance and mortality. And there is really now a scientific consensus that being uninsured raises the death rates. It raises your death rates by between 3 and 29 percent. And the math on that is that if you take health insurance away from 22 million people, about 29,000 of them will die every year, annually, as a result. That’s what we found by reviewing the literature. There was a similar review in New England Journal of Medicine. We punished our own study in the Annals of Internal Medicine, which is the official organ of the American College of Physicians, the nation’s largest medical specialty society. So, being uninsured raises your death rate. That is established scientific consensus. And many of the Republicans have been trying to say, "Oh, you can take away health insurance from 22 million people, and nothing will happen." That’s simply contradicted by the scientific consensus.
AMYGOODMAN: And explain how people die as a result.
DR. STEFFIEWOOLHANDLER: Well, people might have an acute illness, like major trauma. You get hit by a car, and you have to go to the hospital. If you’re uninsured and you have major trauma, your death rates are higher. You might have an illness like breast cancer. If you’re uninsured and you have breast cancer, your death rates are higher. But mostly this has to do with that routine medical care to treat high blood pressure, to treat diabetes, before they cause complications, and to prevent those serious complications and deaths. Seems like hypertension, high blood pressure, is probably the largest single contributor to deaths among uninsured people. You need to be taking medicines to control high blood pressure to prevent strokes and heart attacks and death.
AMYGOODMAN: So this number, 22 million people will lose their health insurance over the next 10 years, and then it only goes up from there.
DR. STEFFIEWOOLHANDLER: Well, according to the Congressional Budget Office, yes, it goes up from there, because the Medicaid cuts in the Senate bill are delayed, but then they’re very, very deep. They’re even deeper over the long run than what was in the House bill. So, Medicaid is going to be cut not just for poor people, but for people in nursing homes. You know, most people in a nursing home eventually have to rely on Medicaid to pay the bill, because nursing home care takes all your money, and you have to rely on Medicaid. If you have a disabled child, you have to rely on Medicaid. If you have a relative who has serious mental illness or substance abuse, they’re going to be relying on Medicaid. So it takes money from all of these people, not just the folks who are poor now, to give this giant tax cut to the top 1 percent of taxpayers.
AMYGOODMAN: I wanted to turn to a comment made by the Idaho Republican Congressman Raúl Labrador during a town hall meeting last month. He came under fire for his answer to this question from an audience member.
AUDIENCEMEMBER: You are mandating people on Medicaid accept dying. You are making a mandate that will kill people.
REP. RAÚL LABRADOR: No, no one wants anybody to die. You know, that line is so indefensible. Nobody dies because they don’t have access to healthcare.
AMYGOODMAN: "Nobody dies because they don’t have access to healthcare." Dr. Steffie Woolhandler?
DR. STEFFIEWOOLHANDLER: Well, Raúl Labrador said it. Senator Ted Cruz has said that. Marco Rubio has said that. Secretary Tom Price, the secretary of health and human services, has implied that, that you can be uninsured and nothing happens. That’s simply not true. The science is showing us that if you lack health insurance, you don’t get the care you need to stay healthy, and that people die earlier as a result. And I think it’s a—the Republicans recognize this is a very dangerous idea for them, that people are going to die because of their behavior. But that’s what the scientific consensus is saying.
About 28 million Americans are currently uninsured, and millions more could lose coverage under policy reforms proposed in Congress. At the same time, a growing number of policy leaders have called for going beyond the Affordable Care Act to a single-payer national health insurance system that would cover every American. These policy debates lend particular salience to studies evaluating the health effects of insurance coverage. In 2002, an Institute of Medicine review concluded that lack of insurance increases mortality, but several relevant studies have appeared since that time. This article summarizes current evidence concerning the relationship of insurance and mortality. The evidence strengthens confidence in the Institute of Medicine's conclusion that health insurance saves lives: The odds of dying among the insured relative to the uninsured is 0.71 to 0.97. Key Summary Points
In several specific conditions, the uninsured have worse survival, and the lack of coverage is associated with lower use of recommended preventive services.
The Oregon Health Insurance Experiment, the only available randomized, controlled trial that has assessed the health effects of insurance, suggests that insurance may cause a clinically important decrease in mortality, but wide CIs preclude firm conclusions.
The 2 National Health and Nutrition Examination Study analyses that include physicians' assessments of baseline health show substantial mortality improvements associated with coverage. A cohort study that used only self-reported baseline health measures for risk adjustment found a nonsignificant coverage effect.
Most, but not all, analyses of data from the longitudinal Health and Retirement Study have found that coverage in the near-elderly slowed health decline and decreased mortality.
Two difference-in-difference studies in the United States and 1 in Canada compared mortality trends in matched locations with and without coverage expansions. All 3 found large reductions in mortality associated with increased coverage.
A mounting body of evidence indicates that lack of health insurance decreases survival, and it seems unlikely that definitive randomized, controlled trials can be done. Hence, policy debate must rely on the best evidence from observational and quasi-experimental studies.
Rather than cover personal stories of people who might die if the GOP bill passes, the media is doing nothing... while the GOP gets stories from people who didn't a good deal from Obaamcare but are now gonna die but that part is left out. the hypocrisy of this silence is certainly deafening at this point. Here are some examples of please for the truth unheeded... People have been pleading with the media to tell the whole truth by putting the facts of the GOP's policies in its proper context...
As Andy Slavitt, the former acting administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, noted, “The Senate bill needs to be compared to current law, not the House bill.” People will die if this bill becomes law. That’s the context reporters should be using when discussing this new proposal.
After Senate Republicans failed in their latest effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA), it is imperative that media stay focused on covering health care. President Donald Trump and Tom Price, his secretary of health and human services, are likely to make unilateral changes that will undermine the ACA and affect those currently covered under it. Media outlets cannot let these policy decisions happen in the dark, as they have in the past.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) announced on July 17 that the latest “effort to repeal and immediately replace the failure of Obamacare will not be successful,” after four Republican senators said they would not vote for the bill. McConnell currently intends to vote on a bill to repeal the ACA with no replacement plan in place -- a move Trump supports -- which, The New York Timeswrote, “has almost no chance to pass.”
Media largely failedto coverthe debate leading up to this failed legislative attempt, which played out behind closed doors in “almost-unprecedented opacity,” leaving audiences in the dark about the consequences and stakes of the proposed bill. For the time being, it appears as if decisions about health care will continue to be made in the dark.
Without Congress, Trump and Price can still deal a potentially fatal blow to the health insurance market. On July 18, Trump reacted to the Senate’s failure to pass an ACA replacement, saying, “Let Obamacare fail. ... I’m not going to own it.” And, as Vox explained, “Especially in states with shakier exchanges, the president certainly does have some fairly broad discretionary authority that he and his health and human services secretary can use to deliberately sabotage the program if they want to.” In March, former Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius told New York magazine that Trump and Price would have to decide “whether or not HHS will continue to reimburse insurance companies for cost-sharing expenses.” Sebelius explained that not making those payments, which Trump has threatened to do, “could cause a number of companies now offering plans in the marketplace to not sign up again for 2018.”
Given the likelihood that Trump and Price will work to destabilize the health care system however they can, media have an obligation to prioritize the issue, especially as Trump is likely to blame Democrats for any negative impacts to health care coverage or to the insurance market in general. The current health care system will undoubtedly continue to inspire debate and attempted sabotage throughout Trump’s time in office. Media better pay attention.
Immediately after Senate Republicans unveiled a new draft of their plan to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA), cable and broadcast newscasts framed reports about the bill around the challenges it faces in the legislative process, including vote counts and optics, rather than personal stories from those who would be most affected by the bill. However, the programs did use the opportunity to cover key changes to and consequences of the bill.
Senate Republicans on July 13 introduced a new draft of their bill to repeal and replace the ACA, which includes key changes surrounding health savings accounts and ways for insurers to offer more bare-bones policies. While the bill has changed a bit, the media coverage has largely stayed the same. Once again, media are continuing to focus on the process surrounding the bill and largely ignoring personal stories from those most affected. Unlike with previous coverage, cable and broadcast news did focus on the new changes in the bill and their potential consequences for Americans. MSNBC in particular provided more context and information about the bill than other networks.
Broadcast news
During the July 13 newscasts, just hours after the new draft plan was introduced, broadcast news shows framed their coverage around the legislative process and optics of the bill. NBC’s Lester Holt introduced a report on the bill on NBC Nightly News by noting that “Republicans face a crucial battle for votes in their own party” over the bill. CBS’ Anthony Mason said the bill was “already in critical condition” on CBS Evening Newsbecause of the lack of Republican support. And ABC’s Mary Bruce framed her report on the new bill by pointing out that it faces “the same old problem: Can it get the votes to pass?”
Like previous coverage, broadcast newscasts largely neglected to offer personal anecdotes from people who would be most affected by the bill. One exception was CBS Evening News, which followed its coverage of the bill with a segment on how Kentuckians would be “hard hit” by its Medicaid cuts.
Network newscasts did do an exemplary job of highlighting the consequences of and new changes in this newest draft of the bill, however, including provisions that would allow “the return of skimpy junk insurance policies and discrimination against people with pre-existing conditions,” according to HuffPost, and expand the use of health savings accounts, which have been found to “primarily benefit the wealthy, the healthy, and the educated.”
Cable news
Like broadcast newscasts, the 6 p.m. hour of cable news coverage framed the unveiling of the bill largely around vote counting and optics. Fox News’ Bret Baier introduced a panel discussion of the bill on Special Report by explaining that the GOP “can only afford to lose one more vote” to pass the bill. Earlier in the program, Baier set up a report on the bill by highlighting “the continued internal dissent” surrounding the bill. MSNBC’s Ali Velshi framed his discussion of the bill on MSNBC Live by saying that it “is hanging by a thread” in terms of votes. CNN’s Jim Acosta opened a segment on the bill by stating that Republicans are “increasingly optimistic about its prospects.” Acosta even conducted an interview with Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD) and asked only about the prospects the bill would pass, not the actual policies it contains.
Like broadcast newscasts, cable coverage was also largely devoid of personal stories from those most affected. However, cable coverage did highlight several changes that are included in this draft of the bill and the consequences of the provisions. MSNBC, especially, excelled in this area, hosting Dr. Kavita Patel, medical director of Sibley Primary Care in Washington, D.C., who noted that this bill “does cause a death spiral … by allowing for insurance plans to sell … catastrophic insurance.”
MSNBC also hosted Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a Democrat, who pointed out that the bill negatively impacts state budgets, like in Virginia.
ALI VELSHI (HOST) That's unfair. You could actually have hearings about this and consult all these groups, what President Trump called special interest groups and one party. Why not have hearings and then come up with a bill rather than throw a bill out there and hope people like it?
LANHEE CHEN: Well Ali, we've been having hearings for the last seven years about replacement --
VELSHI: Well that's not true. Well that's just not true Lanhee. The Republicans have not moved to a single hearing. A public hearing on health care? Not been done.
CHEN: No, no no, we've had lots of hearings in the last seven years --
VELSHI: With whom?
CHEN: -- In the House Ways and means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee about all of the different types of provisions that you see contained in the senate bill.
VELSHI: But no one has had a public hearing at all on this bill. I mean that's a fact.
CHEN: But the policy that goes into it, we've had tons of public hearings on that for the last seven years. That's the point people are trying to make.
VELSHI: People would really like a hearing. I mean I have had the American Cancer Society on this show. I've had the Diabetes Association the show. I've got the American Heart Association on this show, I've had the Alzheimer's Society on the show. AARP on this show. I had every single one of them, the Nurses Association, all of them saying "Can we please have a hearing? "Can we have a meeting with Mitch McConnell?" And guess what he says to every single one of them -- big fat goose eggs. So let's not go down this road and suggest there have been hearings, Lanhee. There here very zero hearings.
CHEN: No there have been hearings and all those groups Al have been represented at those hearing over the last several years. I don’t disagree with you a better process is good. These issues have been discussed.
VELSHI: I'm wearing a big Santa Claus hat right now. That's about as honest as what you just said, but that’s how we're gonna end the show. I'm wearing a Santa Claus hat and there have been hearings about Obamacare.
What Jake Tapper should have been saying here is that "so a few less people are going to die... people are still going to die. How do you feel about voting to kill Americans?"..are the sorts of words and facts that will drive the point home. How do you think the American people would feel if they heard the truth? How long would the repeal process last if the American people heard the truth?
JAKE TAPPER (HOST): Let's talk about the measure that Republicans are calling "skinny repeal", because it would be a relatively brief amendment. It would get rid of the both the employer and the individual mandate and also get rid of the medical device tax. Wouldn't that measure, if it were signed into law, hurt insurance markets and cause premiums for those who have insurance to go up? Because obviously it would mean people being removed from the insurance pool.
JOHN THUNE (R-SD): Well, what you would have, the individual mandate is I think the thing that people find most objectionable about Obamacare, and that is that they have to buy a product that in many cases they don’t want and can't afford. So repealing the individual mandate is something on which I think were there is pretty broad agreement. There might even be some Democrat support for that before this is all said and done.
[…]
TAPPER: But the "skinny repeal" would also take away the employer mandate also, which means that individuals in businesses of a certain size have to provide health insurance. So it’s not just the individuals who can’t afford it necessarily being forced to, it’s saying to employers they don’t have to provide it.
As the Senate Republicans prepared to vote on a bill to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA), Fox & Friends spent the morning misleading its audience about congressional procedure heading into the vote, omitting key details in an interview with a critic of the ACA (a mother who blamed health care reform for a lack of options for her son's care), and failing to mention that the GOP sabotaged the ACA for years. The hosts also, directly and indirectly, pressured Republicans into voting for the bill while shifting blame away from President Donald Trump if it fails.
One of the first health care segments on the July 25 edition of Fox News’ Fox & Friends was an interview with Marjorie Weer, a mother who was invited to the White House on July 24 to serve as an example of someone victimized by Obamacare.
During the interview, Weer discussed her son’s disability and said the ACA has made it more difficult for her son to get care. Co-host Ainsley Earhardt, who conducted the interview, left out a few previously reported details of Weer’s story wherein her family directly benefitted from health care reform. A July 24 article in The Post and Courierpointed out that Weer and her family “benefited from the Obamacare provision that insurance companies cannot deny coverage to an individual because of a preexisting condition.” The Weer family also benefited from another provision banning “lifetime spending limits.”
Additionally, Earhardt failed to note that cuts to Medicaid in the Republican-authored bills under consideration in Congress would cause sweeping cuts to special education programs, which would presumably be important to many families with a child who has a disability. During her Post and Courier interview, Weer admitted that her son has actually benefitted from Medicaid, which she called a “lifesaver” before endorsing efforts to “rein it in.” The Post and Courier added: "Ultimately, Weer said, she felt fairly confident that under the Senate Republican bill, preexisting conditions protections would be preserved, along with the ban on lifetime spending caps. Whether the legislation sufficiently accomplishes these goals is, in fact, subject to debate between supporters and critics."
The topic of health care also came up when the hosts of Fox & Friends interviewed Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) later on in the program.
In the interview, co-host Steve Doocy attempted to pressure Manchin into voting for a motion to proceed to a debate for legislation to replace the ACA by misleadingly suggesting that senators “can offer up amendments and change it to anyway you want it.” Doocy added that it appeared as if Democrats “are a party of no” because they do not support a motion to proceed. Manchin corrected Doocy, telling him, “That’s not the way it works in the real world.” Manchin pointed out that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) would be able to control what amendments are in the bill and would have the power to exclude Democratic amendments.
During a later segment, co-host Ed Henry also framed the Senate vote by laying out the current state of Obamacare, saying that the health care system was “struggling” with costs and falsely claiming, “the exchanges are falling apart.”
Henry also brought up “the destruction of the exchanges” again when he was recapping Weer’s interview.
Henry left out some important context. The challenges the exchanges face today are largely due to Republican sabotage at the state and federal level. As The Washington Postnoted, Republicans in Congress blocked funding to build a federal exchange and urged Republican-led states to “refuse to build their own insurance marketplaces.” Additionally, Politico reported, “Congressional Republicans refused repeatedly to appropriate dedicated funds" needed for the federal government to "take at least partial responsibility for creating marketplaces serving 36 states" that “declined to create their own state insurance exchanges.” Republican stonewalling left "the Health and Human Services Department and other agencies to cobble together HealthCare.gov by redirecting funds from existing programs," according to Politico.
Fox & Friends also spent time pressuring Republican senators, either directly or indirectly, to support the bill. In an interview with Fox contributor Newt Gingrich, Doocy suggested that if they don’t support the bill, Republicans could look like they were “fibbing” when they promised for years to repeal the ACA.
Here you get to see CNN support Trumps speech promoting killing Citizens ...
S.E. CUPP: Let me just say, welcome to Washington, Mr. President. Because as everyone had stated, this was a very typical, traditional, classic White House moment of political theater. But you cannot understate how extraordinary that is for Donald Trump. This was a speech about real people and real problems with real enemies, not imagined enemies, you know? He didn't slam the press or his own [attorney general], for example, or imagined threats. He went after the real enemy, which he sees as Obamacare and the Democratic policies behind it. That was not only incredibly disciplined, but I thought very effective. I also heard, for the first time, some policy in this speech. He talked about what the bill was going to do and what it wasn't going to do. Again, we can talk about there being a low bar, but this really was one of the most -- this is the opposite of presidenting by tweet, what we just saw here. And it might be common for another administration, but for this one, this was new.
[...]
DANA BASH: This is standing at a lectern in one of the ornate rooms of the White House doing something super-presidential, which we would have gone like this, so what, if President Obama and George W. Bush and Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush, blah, blah, blah, had all done this. But this is so jarring because it's so classically presidential and so un-Trumplike.
Flanked by families Trump said had suffered under the Affordable Care Act, he said, "So far, Senate Republicans have not done their job in ending the Obamacare nightmare."
Many senators remain in the dark as to what piece of legislation they will be voting on. Trump spoke only of passing a bill to repeal and replace the sweeping health care law without endorsing a specific bill.
Here are some of his statements and the fact-checks we’ve examined in the past.
"Obamacare has broken our health care system. It's broken. It's collapsing."
While Trump has often said that Obamacare is collapsing, the first part of that statement goes further to say that the law has broken the entire health care system. This is not accurate.
The reality is that much of the care people receive continues as before, and by some measures, the system is on better footing than before. Hospitals, for example, spent about $6 billion less between 2013 and 2014 on care for which they received no payment. So-called uncompensated care fell mainly in states that expanded the Medicaid program to all poor adults, according to a study by the Kaiser Family Foundation. That bottom line improvement made hospitals more financially stable.
As for the individual insurance market, the part of Obamacare that Trump has said before is in a death spiral, we have rated statements like that False.
The CBO said even though premiums have been rising, most of the people who buy through the government-run insurance exchanges are protected by the subsidies that are built into the law.
"The subsidies to purchase coverage, combined with the effects of the individual mandate, which requires most individuals to obtain insurance or pay a penalty, are anticipated to cause sufficient demand for insurance by enough people, including people with low health care expenditures, for the market to be stable in most areas."
That said, as recently as July 12, the Kaiser Family Foundation found that 38 counties in the country are at risk of not having a single health insurance provider in 2018.
"They (senators) can now keep their promise to the American people to provide emergency relief to those in desperate need of help, and to improve health care for all Americans."
Trump makes it sounds like aid would be readily available to struggling health care consumers. The "emergency relief" in the Senate bill would actually go to insurance companies and state governments. While some of the money would help individuals, most of the benefits would be indirect and might take time to come together.
The Senate bill contains $182 billion designed to keep premiums down and encourage insurance companies to continue to sell policies in more local markets. The money comes in two pots.
The first is $50 billion over two years that insurance companies could request from the federal government to offset losses. In theory, this protection would reduce the risk to carriers and lead to lower insurance premiums.
Another $132 billion would be spread out over a number of years and would go to the states. States could use this money to pay the premiums for people in high risk pools. They could also provide additional premium subsidies and pay hospitals, doctors and other health care providers.
The precise impact of this is difficult to predict. Premium subsidies would tend to push premiums down. At the same time, the Senate bill gives insurers more flexibility to charge more to older policy holders. That, coupled with higher deductibles and other out-of-pocket expenses, could produce uneven effects.
According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, "older, lower-income people generally would see the largest increases; younger and more affluent people would see decreases in many locations."
"The Senate is very close to the votes it needs to pass a replacement. The problem is we have zero help from the Democrats. They're obstructionists."
Trump is correct that zero Democrats support Republican efforts to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. But blaming Democrats for Senate Republicans’ failure to pass legislation doesn’t tell the whole story.
Because the GOP holds 52 Senate seats to Democrats’ 48, Democrats would be powerless to stop a united GOP caucus from passing legislation to dismantle Obamacare. In fact, Republicans could afford to lose two members and still pass the bill, with Vice President Mike Pence casting the tie-breaking vote.
The truth is Senate Republicans have been unable to agree on a replacement package that reconciles divisions between its more moderate and conservative members.
Defections by four GOP senators effectively killed the repeal-and-replace plan on July 17. The following day, a more modest repeal bill was doomed after three Senate Republicans came out in opposition.
Later in his speech, Trump appeared to acknowledge the difficulty of reaching an agreement given Senate Republicans’ slim margin of error.
"The Democrats aren't giving us one vote, so we need virtually every single vote from the Republicans," he said. "Not easy to do."
The bill provides "more flexibility for states to administer Medicaid to better serve their poorest citizens."
The Senate bill would fundamentally change Medicaid financing. Instead of the open-ended commitment it is today, the program would be put on a budget. States could choose to receive federal dollars based on a per-person formula, or they could take the money as a block grant. Either way, many federal rules would disappear, and states would gain the flexibility to spend Medicaid dollars as they see fit, as Trump said.
On the other hand, Washington would be much less generous with states than it is today. Medicaid spending would continue to rise, but at a much slower rate. The CBO estimated that by 2026, states would be getting 26 percent less than they would if the law remained the same. The cumulative difference over the next 10 years would be $756 billion.
This proposal has driven a wedge in the Republican ranks, dividing senators from states that want to preserve as much of the Medicaid funding as possible -- essentially in states that expanded Medicaid -- from those who feel the current system puts them at a disadvantage or simply spends too much.
But clearly the media has refused to tell the truth to the American people and instead congratulate Trump on being "Presidential" while he pushes a bill to kill citizens.
So what to make of stories like this?... CNN: How the GOP health care bills help the rich: If Republican efforts to repeal and replace Obamacare are successful, one of the biggest winners would be the wealthy. The Senate's bill -- released this week -- differs in key ways from the House-passed version. But proposals eliminate the taxes imposed on high-income Americans to help pay for an expansion of health benefits under the Affordable Care Act. The legislation also would let people contribute more to certain tax-advantaged accounts. At the same time, both bills are expected to disproportionately hurt lower income households by reducing funding for Medicaid and offering less generous subsidies to buy health insurance. Given that the right doesn't have any negative connotations to be rich (& they are often conned to think they may one day become rich so they help someone just because they are rich... even with treason if they are dumb enough to anti-American accept the con as real).... why would CNN frame the debate this way if not to create and impossible divide between right and left?
NBC/MSNBC is following the same kiss-ass or complicity strategy which reminds me of Stockholms Syndrome (and when they fired Phil Donahue for daring to question a GOP Administration) ...
MSNBC’s Hugh Hewitt, a right-wing radio host and Trump apologist who was bizarrely rewarded by the network last month with his own weekend show, used an appearance on the July 24 edition of MSNBC Live to push the absurd claim that Medicaid is just “paper insurance” for many recipients and “isn't actually health care.” Hewitt’s disparagement of the Medicaid program came just moments after President Donald Trump concluded an anti-Obamacare tirade at the White House, in which Trump pressured undecided Republican senators to support the GOP’s plan to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Right-wing media figures routinely criticise the Medicaid program and its recipients while promoting Republican plans to gut the program. Hewitt’s critique of the supposedly low quality of Medicaid coverage has become more prevalent among Trump-aligned pundits in recent weeks despite it having been discredited years ago. From the July 24 segment:
Clearly Governor Pence is OK with killing Americans and is actively pushing for just such an outcome!
Pence says at Republican dinner that 'inaction is not an option' on ObamaCare Vice President Mike Pence on Saturday said “inaction is not an option” when it comes to ObamaCare, as the administration pressures senators to vote to begin debate on repealing former President Barack Obama’s health care law in the coming days. “Now, this week, the Senate will vote to begin the debate to repeal and replace ObamaCare once and for all,” Pence said in Columbus, Ohio at the Ohio Republican Party State Dinner. “The president and I are calling on every member of the Senate to support that measure.” He added, “Republicans know inaction is not an option. America needs to be delivered from ObamaCare and Congress needs to act to repeal and replace ObamaCare and they need to do it now.”
The fact that Pence is using verifiable lies and is calling Democrats what they themselves are, i.e. obstructionists on policies that help Americans, as they have proven again and again, clearly he is too stupid to be a leader or is an outright traitor... Speaking Saturday about the effort to pass health care legislation, Pence said: “The truth is ObamaCare has failed. And ObamaCare must go. Now, the House of Representatives, these great congressmen here, have already done their work.” He painted Democrats as obstructionists and called on the Republicans in attendance to work to defeat the state’s Democratic senator. “It’s important to note in this moment, though, that Republicans have faced opposition from every single Democrat in the House and Senate, including Ohio’s own Sen. Sherrod Brown,” Pence said. He added, “So could you do America a favor? Let’s retire Sen. Sherrod Brown in 2018 and give Ohio two great Republican senators.”
Response to Ron Paul's ideas;
Rand Paul: Insurance should be available for $1 a day Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., discusses the Senate GOP plan to overhaul health care, the Medicaid cuts proposed in the bill and his ideas for making health insurance affordable. Duration: 9:14
Me: We have a working model with medicare which can be improved upon. Trying to work a system that keeps getting more expensive is a recipe for disaster UNLESS you have a good score from professionals like the CBO. Math is real and projections can be made using data. Being a few thousand off in this context still gets us a very good estimate form which to work from.
The GOP has actually been pushing a plan to maximize the death of Americans, clearly they don't care about the American people EXCEPT in word...
Senate considers holding vote on bill to repeal ACA with no replacement Right-wing media have pushed for the GOP to refocus attention on repealing the ACA The CBO found harmful consequences for a 2015 plan to repeal the ACA
ABC: McConnell “called for a vote to repeal Obamacare with a two-year delay” to find a replacement. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) announced on July 17 that the Senate would vote “to repeal Obamacare” with a “two-year delay” before finding a replacement for the law, according to ABC News. President Donald Trump echoed McConnell in a tweet, ABC reported, urging Republicans to “vote to repeal Obamacare first and then ‘attempt to craft’ a replacement” later. From the July 18 article:
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has called for a vote to repeal Obamacare with a two-year delay after the plan to replace the law failed to win enough Republican support.
[...]
"Regretfully, it is now apparent that the effort to repeal and immediately replace the failure of Obamacare will not be successful," McConnell said in a statement. McConnell said that "in the coming days," the Senate would vote on "a repeal of Obamacare with a two-year delay to provide for a stable transition period to a patient-centered health care system that gives Americans access to quality, affordable care."
[...]
President Trump in an apparent response to the announcements by [Sens. Jerry] Moran [(R-KS)] and [Mike] Lee [(R-UT)] urged Republicans to vote to repeal Obamacare first and then "attempt to craft" a replacement. [ABC News, 7/18/17]
Fox’s Ainsley Earhardt: It might be “safest” to repeal Obamacare without a replacement plan.Fox & Friends co-host Ainsley Earhardt suggested that it might be “safest” for Senate Republicans to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA) without a replacement plan. Co-host Steve Doocy said the repeal-and-delay tactic is “what people voted for” even after co-host Brian Kilmeade said an outright ACA repeal “would be a disaster.” From the July 13 edition of Fox News’ Fox & Friends:
STEVE DOOCY (CO-HOST): Here's the problem right now. Keep in mind there are 10 Republican senators who have said no. Right now, they're not even to the point, they don't have the votes to proceed at this point. So a little later on this morning, [Senate Majority Leader] Mitch [McConnell] is going to unveil the latest version of it. The highlights of it -- people who are critics of it say, "Look, you've got -- you've still got a lot of the regulations from Obamacare. You've got the taxes from Obamacare. You've got the insurance subsidies of Obamacare. Everything people have voted over the last number of years to get rid of still baked into the new bill. So that's why a lot of people feel there's a real good possibility this thing is not going to pass.
BRIAN KILMEADE (CO-HOST): Well, a guy like [Sen.] Ted Cruz [(R-TX)] has an amendment. They're really looking at what Ted Cruz is putting forward. It's not perfect for a conservative like him. But he understands a center-right plan is better than Obama's plan, which Republicans view is wrong. But [Sen.] Rand Paul [(R-KY)], who's joining us in an hour and 15 minutes, says, "Right now I'm a no. The Senate bill does not repeal Obamacare, not even close." However, you can't purely take out Obamacare and put a new one in because you don't have 60 Republicans. They had 60 Democrats and got them all, right? They had to bribe them, do everything --
DOOCY: Well, we had [Rep.] Mo Brooks [(R-AL)] on yesterday. He said, ”Why don't they just use the nuclear option? All they need is 50 votes. Just repeal it and then have a grace period of a couple years and come up with something.”
KILMEADE: That would be a disaster.
DOOCY: Well that's what -- that's what people voted for.
AINSLEY EARHARDT (CO-HOST): That might be the safest way to do it, though. Because if they haven't come to a compromise yet on what's best for the constituents of their state, that may be the best way to do it. Because they risk -- there's a lot of pressure on the Republicans, not only on Mitch McConnell to get this thing passed, but also to make sure it's right. [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 7/13/17]
Fox’s Sean Hannity: “If you can’t replace” the ACA, “repeal it.” Fox News host Sean Hannity blasted Senate Republicans for their inaction on health care, saying, “If you can’t replace it, then do what you said -- repeal it.” From the July 13 edition of Fox News’ Hannity:
SEAN HANNITY (HOST): If you can’t replace it, then do what you said -- repeal it. You have no excuses left. You have the House, the Senate, the presidency.
[...]
I have a message for all of you in Washington: You know what? You cannot give up on repealing the quote “Affordable Care Act.” You made us a promise, the American people. For seven years, you guaranteed you’d end Obamacare. [Fox News, Hannity, 7/13/17]
TheBlaze’s Lawrence Jones: Republicans “should have just repealed the bill and then came up with solutions afterwards.” TheBlaze host Lawrence Jones said that Republicans “should have just repealed the bill and then came up with solutions afterwards,” suggesting that now Republicans should “do the full repeal and then take care of the spending stuff in a different bill.” From the July 10 edition of Fox News’ Happening Now:
LAWRENCE JONES: Back in 2010, when tea party patriots across this country protested, they said “repeal.” These establishment people are the ones that are now saying “replace,” “replace,” “replace,” “repeal and replace.” They should have just repealed the bill and then came up with solutions afterwards.
[...]
You can do the full repeal and then take care of the spending stuff in a different bill. [Fox News, Happening Now, 7/10/17]
Michelle Malkin: Republicans “had one job: repeal Obamacare.” Conservative commentator Michelle Malkin criticized “bipartisan crap weasels on both sides of the aisle” for working on a plan to repeal and replace the law rather than “a straight repeal.” From the June 28 edition of Fox News’ Fox & Friends:
MICHELLE MALKIN: I have long called out the bipartisan crap weasels on both sides of the aisle. Look, so many Republicans were elected, they had one job: repeal Obamacare.
STEVE DOOCY (CO-HOST): That’s all.
MALKIN: That’s it. And it’s fairly clear to most ordinary Americans what “repeal” means. The problem with what’s happening in the Senate now stems back to the House Republicans, who couldn’t agree on a straight repeal. The repeal that they offered up during the Obama years that was clear and that made sense and that did what they promised to do. But so many of these swamp creatures overpromise and underdeliver. [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 6/28/17]
CBO: Repealing the ACA would leave 32 million people uninsured by 2026. A January report by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) found that a proposal to repeal portions of the Affordable Care Act (ACA)would leave 18 million people uninsured in the first year. Additionally, the CBO predicted that by 2026, the number of Americans without health insurance would increase by 32 million compared to maintaining the ACA. From the CBO report:
The number of people who are uninsured would increase by 18 million in the first new plan year following enactment of the bill. Later, after the elimination of the ACA’s expansion of Medicaid eligibility and of subsidies for insurance purchased through the ACA marketplaces, that number would increase to 27 million, and then to 32 million in 2026. [Congressional Budget Office, 1/17/17]
CBO: “Premiums would about double by 2026” as insurers flee individual market. The CBO predicted that repealing portions of the ACA “would lead to substantially reduced participation by insurers and enrollees in many areas.” The CBO also reported that health insurance premiums in the individual market would increase by 20 to 25 percent in the first year alone and could increase by 50 percent over current increase projections by 2026. From the report:
Premiums in the nongroup market (for individual policies purchased through the marketplaces or directly from insurers) would increase by 20 percent to 25 percent—relative to projections under current law—in the first new plan year following enactment. The increase would reach about 50 percent in the year following the elimination of the Medicaid expansion and the marketplace subsidies, and premiums would about double by 2026. [Congressional Budget Office, 1/17/17]
What the media is doing is encouraging the GOP & Trump rather than going after them for treason. At the very least, tell the truth that the GOP are condemning people to death rather than fixing a problem!
Note: Media DOES repeat what politicians say, so if one or more say the facts of deaths as they are and fight and media attempts to discredit them, it might work to resetting the narrative to a more factfilled debate amoungst liberal media (if the politicians fight back). Also, getting some politicians to stand firm on truth may cause the media to pick up on their story and pass it along to the people... if many politicians stand firm we have a revolution. Rant:
All GOP policies inevitably seem to result in death of citizens, or them being killed by a crazy guy reacting to bad rhetoric or simply policies passed that result in killing people as a matter of mathematical fact, i.e. murder (minus minor unpredictable elements, the estimate of future deaths tends to be pretty much accurate, especially when you understand that 1 is too much).
Since the media has been silence in the face of all these deaths it comes as no surprise to me that once again they are refusing to state the simple fact that the GOP is pushing a policy of Death and are instead encouraging them to band together like they are an elementary school play and not a mad political party intent on killing Americans to fulfill their mad and unverifiable ideological positions (whether they are in politics or economics). So, despite many people begging the media not to drop the ball on the American people dying because of a bill which they will say nothing more that "22 million more uninsured" or "32 million uninsured" without mentioning what this means in human costs. Clearly the media are aiding and abetting in murder ... either innocently or out of politeness or from corporate boards influence or a mixture of the three, but the complicity in most certainly there
