As we reported earlier today, while many items on the Trump agenda for both the “first day” and the rest of 2017, could take a substantial amount of time and effort before they are legislated and implemented, one thing that there was virtually unanimous consensus on, was that Trump would immediately launch the repeal of Obamacare, even if replacing the Affordable Care Law would take considerably longer (as it would require bipartisan support).
However, it now appears that even the prompt repeal of Obamacare is in question as Trump has now backed waiting to repeal the Affordable Care Act until a replacement proposal is in hand, following in a Friday night phone call with Rand Paul, the Kentucky Republican said Monday, adding to momentum for changing GOP leaders’ strategy on dismantling the 2010 health-care law.
Paul has emerged a vocal leader of a growing group of Republican senators expressing concerns with GOP plans to vote to repeal the health law early this year, then to hammer out over weeks or months what would replace it after a two- to three-year transition. Cited by the WSJ, Paul said in an interview “I believe we should vote on replacement the same day we vote on repeal,” and added that Trump called the senator on Friday night “to say he agrees completely.”
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As the WSJ adds, a Trump transition official confirmed that the incoming president spoke with Mr. Paul on Friday, and said meetings are under way to determine how a replacement law could be approved at the same time—or close to it—that a repeal of the law is approved. Last week, Trump personally warned congressional Republicans on Twitter to “be careful” about the political consequences of moving quickly to repeal the law.
The push from both Trump and Paul, as well as at least five other GOP senators, will put pressure on Republican leaders to accelerate the process of crafting a unified GOP replacement plan. Republicans have proposed dozens of ideas over the years for overhauling the health-care system but have yet to coalesce around a plan.
In other words, in a shift on a popular Nency Pelosi statement, the Republicans “will not repeal it eventually come up with a replacement“, but will do both at the same time. The question now is how long such a unified process could take.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who met with Mr. Trump in Trump Tower on Monday morning, appeared to indicate Sunday that Republicans were accelerating the process of settling on a replacement plan.
“We will be replacing it rapidly after repealing it,” the Kentucky Republican said Sunday on CBS. He wasn’t specific about the timing of the drafting of a new health-care system, or what it would entail, but he said, “There ought not to be a great gap between the first step and the second.”
Trump has said before that he wanted to “simultaneously” repeal and replace the health-care law, but GOP leaders on Capitol Hill hadn’t committed to that timeline.
One thing is clear: both repealing and replacing the health law would be complicated legislative maneuvers with sweeping repercussions for both the health-care industry and millions of American consumers. It could also take years, and keep Obamacare in its current form for a long time, contrary to Trump’s campaign promises.
Reince Priebus said on Sunday that a new health plan might not be ready immediately after gutting the Affordable Care Act. “It may take time to get all the elements of the replacement in place,” Mr. Priebus said on CBS. “The full replacement may take more time than an instantaneous action.”
As reported previously, Republicans are planning to use a special process tied to the budget to pass legislation repealing the health law with a simple majority, but they can afford to lose few GOP votes. They would need all Republicans and several Democratic votes to then approve any replacement health-care system, in order to reach the 60 votes needed to clear the chamber’s procedural hurdles. Paul, who has objected to the budget maneuver over its spending levels, said that he would like to see what would replace the health law weeks later, after House and Senate committees have detailed how the ACA would be repealed. The budget specifies that they must produce their legislation by Jan. 27.
Meanwhile, in a separate article, Bloomberg reports that top advisers to President-elect Donald Trump will meet Monday evening with House Speaker Paul Ryan and his policy staff to discuss taxes and other policy issues, according to two people familiar with the plans. Topics on the agenda include tax reform, the budget, infrastructure and Obamacare.
As a reminder, tax reform was the other item that Trump is expected to be able to enact relatively painlessly.
Ryan and his team intend to walk through the tax reform plan House Republicans put forward last year, calling it a “priority issue” for the House and the president-elect, according to the other person, a Republican aide. House Ways & Means Committee Chair Kevin Brady will be the House Republicans’ point person on tax reform, the aide said. According to Bloomberg, though Trump and Ryan agree on plenty, points of contention include tariffs for companies that move jobs overseas, a $1 trillion infrastructure plan, as Trump has called for, and how many people an Obamacare replacement should insure.
Present at the meeting will be all the top economic Incoming White House aides Reince Priebus, Stephen Miller, Stephen Bannon, Jared Kushner and, of course, former Goldman President Gary Cohn.
More propaganda imo
If you didn’t hear it from Trump, it means nothing. McConnell says repeal is still a go.
So the debt ridden and bankrupt U.S. Is going to repeal Obamacare and replace it with Republicare. Great news!! Can’t wait.
We don’t have any idea what that will be yet, so maybe we should wait to see what develops to replace what is obviously a failed system before judging it.
Obamacare needs t be repealed in stages so that there isn’t some regulatory limbo left in the air that would prevent insurance companies facing a short term unknown future and making them unwilling to develop new products they won’t be able to sell anymore in a few months or a year or so.
Getting rid of mandatory insurance purchase and allowing competitive insurance markets across State lines would be a good first step, IMO.
“Obamacare needs to be repealed in stages so that there isn’t some regulatory limbo left in the air that would prevent insurance companies facing a short term unknown future and making them unwilling to develop new products they won’t be able to sell anymore in a few months or a year or so.”
Bullshit – The only “product” I have ever seen an insurance company come up with is a way to extract more money out of its customers either through A. Mandatory laws (car insurance, Obamacare) or B. Fearmongering ie: You could be left “unprotected” if not for this increase in “benefits”. The whole racket is like the mob in New York coming in to the shop owners establishment with a baseball bat and telling the owner they need to take out “insurance” to protect him against “bad guys”, while breaking his merchandise and shelving with the bat.
Here is what needs to happen on January 21.
1. January 21st, Trump should instruct the Justice Department to begin enforcement of the Sherman – Clayton act, and Graham – Leech Bailey antitrust laws against medical monopoly executives – Healthcare systems, medical device manufacturers, pharma execs etc.
2. The DEA is instructed that they should begin to prepare for the allowance of prescription drugs to be purchased and imported from Europe or other countries of THE SAME DRUGS by anyone. This immediately cuts off the monopoly power of the pharma industry. Why would anyone buy a medicine in the states at $20,000 a vile, when they could purchase the same thing in Mexico for $200.00. Scorpion Anti-venom as one example. Think Epipen.
3. Begin studying the pricing model of the Oklahoma Surgery Center, and similar hospitals, that somehow manage to make good money and have superior care with upfront pricing structures and minimal paperwork.
4. Repeal the individual mandate.
5. Put the AMA on notice that state “con” laws will be repealed and competition for things like imaging and other straight forward procedures will happen again. Think an MRI for 100.00 vs 1200.00.
6. When the usual ass-hats start blathering about “quality care” and “availability”, Trump uses the bully pulpit to remind the American public about the statistics for our health system – child mortality rates, deaths in hospitals due to “mistakes”, patient mortality rates compared to of all places – Mexico, etc. and how asshats like that Epipen guy (can’t remember his name) have basically held people hostage due to anti competitive practices in healthcare. We did not put up with it in the 80’s with AT&T phone service, why do we put up with it now in the millennium with our medical care.
I guarantee, the first time an executive is “frog marched” on national television, magically yours, and everyone else’s “healthcare” expense will drop by 60 to 80%. Although, a few Porsche and Maserati dealerships may experience some sales drops….No the only way to deal with these opportunistic criminals – remember, they are trading on the lives of sick and vulnerable individuals every day – is to hit them fast, hard and with extreme prejudice, to the fullest extent of the law.
Bollocks. Once instituted Federal programs never go away. Oh sure, ObongoCare will be tweaked to allow more slices of the public pie to be distributed to campaign contributors in the healthcare industry, but reform is not possible with inherently corrupt creatures that control Congress. Bet on it.
Now Flash , you promised that Trump would obliterate the Repugnants and right the wrongs that have been foisted upon us during the Obongo years because he (Trump) is NOT PART OF THE SYSTEM.
Where is the superhero in the armour that we were bombarded with daily?
So far we see, the swamp runeth over, nepotism, no repeal of Obamacare, etc.etc.etc.
The key words in this article are Rand is working on this and “two to three years transition period to Repugnantcare”. The middle class will be totally bankrupt by then.
Trump hasn’t taken office yet, Obama is still President.
Considering this, he has already accomplished quite a bit, hasn’t he?
Huh! So much for that promise. I suspect The Trump we’re actually getting won’t be The Trump we thought we were getting.
“Delay is the deadliest form of denial.” C Northcote Parkinson
Gee. Repeal of Obamacare was to be day one. I guess Trump is starting to listen to the Wormtongue’s he is surrounded with.
Not good. Not good at all.
Congress is the one that has to repeal Obamacare, the President doesn’t have the authority to repeal any legislation by himself.
Congress is already in the first stage of action on this, and it isn’t even “day one” for Trump yet.
Don’t forget that the majority of Congress is either overtly (the “never Trump” crowd) or covertly against him, and will put protecting their positions and power above cooperating with Trump first no matter what the people may want.
No one of any intelligence expects Trump to have an easy time of it with either the Democrats or the Republican establishment.
Agreed, however Trump IS the nations top law enforcement official. All he has to do is instruct his Justice department to begin enforcing EXISTING LAW. Even if congress wants to drag its feet on NEW LAWS, or repealing old laws, he can move forward and put a stake in the heart of the beast through Anti Trust enforcement.
I don’t think anti trust laws could be applied to corporations obeying current law, and certainly not to government (which falls outside of such legislation since it is, by nature, an exclusive “trust”).
Any instruction to ignore current law would be a violation of his oath to uphold and defend the laws of the United States as is required of the office of President. We’ve had eight years of that under Obama, let’s not make it a permanent institution by continuing the practice into the next Presidency which will result in both legitimizing and expanding it.
There is this little thing called a veto. If Donald is not happy with the new legislation, veto would end it.
News is he has changed his mind, and now wants immediate repeal.
With all due respect – YES THEY CAN and SHOULD, because these corporations ARE NOT obeying current law. They are being given a pass due to large contributions and threats of fire and brimstone by the K Street lobbyists. There is a BIG difference between obeying the law, and a law NOT BEING ENFORCED. Here is a small clip from an article just penned (digitally) by Karl Denninger at Market-Ticker.org that explains more detail on this. The whole article is at: https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=231751 and https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=231758
“There has been zero discussion or statements made about doing the one thing that will actually fix the problem: Enforcing 15 United States Code against all medical and health-insurance related firms. We could start by enforcing Robinson-Patman, which federally bans price discrimination for buyers of like kind and quantity, against pharma firms and hospitals. We could enforce the anti-collusion components of Sherman and Clayton against everyone, and indicting anyone who won’t post a price and charge the same price to everyone without regard to how they pay. In short we could take the monopolists in both insurance and medicine out back behind the woodshed and offer them a choice — either cut it out, right now, or go to prison under 100+ year old already-existing law and have your corporation ruined with $100 million per-count fines, and remind them that we will tally every person that gets screwed as a separate and unique count.”
The ignorance on this is 1. Astounding from the public, and those that should know better 2. Willfully being diverted by the money changers and AMA and other stakeholders that could lose billions of dollars if EXISTING LAW were simply enforced. Again, AT&T was broken up in the 80’s, and that was just our phones. Our very lives (collectively) are being manipulated by these asshats, and the discussion is always about – what about coverage? Pulease…..The only cure for this is to start bringing in the handcuffs.
Metaphorically speaking…
“I have this really uncomfortable rash, and I have an ointment that will cure it. But gosh! If I cure my rash, what on earth will I replace it with?”
A better metaphor would include that the ointment will leave ulcers in your skin if you don’t use it carefully.
Hey Anonymous! An even better metaphor is that the person who caused the rash and the person selling the cream are actually business partners — and they are both working to develop a very expensive treatment for skin ulcers! 🙂
Except that the Republicans and Trump had nothing to do with developing Obamacare and there is no reason to believe they are developing something worse to replace it.
Ever hear of Romneycare?And who nominated Romney to be their candidate 4 Prez in 2012?
One thing that would help greatly, no matter what plan is adopted, is to stop two tier pricing. Why is there much lower pricing to insurance companies than to private parties? Yes, I understand that large drug companies, insurance companies, etc., have enough clout to negotiate lower prices. But charging private people much higher rates for any procedure, office visit, medication, is a disgrace. I have worked in enough hospitals and med offices to see it.
My sell out meter has been going crazy. It’s reading has been verified by Stucky and Llpoh above. The Republicans are fixin’ to piss down our neck and tell us it’s raining.
At least it will be a warm rain-be happy man.
Of course they should wait until there is a reasonable replacement. To do otherwise would lead to chaos, which is just what the Demoscum want. This is a no-brainer.
Interesting development.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-01-10/healthcare-chaos-emerges-after-trump-backtracks-demands-immediate-repeal-catastrophi
Kill it utterly NOW! Fuck replacing it. Where the hell in article 1 section 8 does CONgress get this power anyway???
I know, do you?
Jason Calley says:
January 10, 2017 at 8:45 am
Metaphorically speaking…
“I have this really uncomfortable rash, and I have an ointment that will cure it. But gosh! If I cure my rash, what on earth will I replace it with?”
What the FUCK? Replace an unconstitutional law forced down our throats with a slightly reworded imposition on our freedom?
REPEAL and let the FSA work for a living.