7 Years of GOP Constipation, ends with a crap of GOP Replacement to ACA Bill

[benld74]

Yes, after seven years, it's finally here (Part 1) and here (Part 2). It has a catchier title than the ACA ("The American Health Care Act&quot , which is typical of Republican bills. Remember George W. Bush's "Healthy Forests Initiative", which actually opened previously protected forest areas to logging, often unnecessarily or under false pretense? See, it has the word "American" right there in the title, so it must be good, right? I'll be abbreviating this as "AHCA", although they're already annoying me by spelling "healthcare" as two words (I strongly believe it should be one).

Here's the stuff which CAN'T be changed via the reconciliation process, and is therefore not touched...yet. That is, these are changes which would either require 60 votes in the Senate or would require the GOP to kill the filibuster entirely to push through:

Guaranteed issue (no pre-existing condition denials)
Community rating (can't charge different people more for the same policy outside of a tight set of parameters)
The ACA's preventative benefits (I'm not sure if this list changes, but I'd imagine not)
No lifetime or annual limits on coverage (a few people have stated otherwise, but this seems to be the consensus)
Required essential benefits for every plan on the private market (ie, group or individual)
Limits on out-of-pocket costs for enrollees
Young adults 19-25 being allowed to stay on their parents' plan (I've noted before that I always suspected this would survive any repeal effort)
"Removing the lines" to allow carriers to "sell insurance across state lines" (at least not any more so than the ACA already allows them to)
The "Grassley Amendment": Congressional staffers will still have to enroll via the DC exchange in order to receive tax credits.
The 80/20 Medical Loss Ratio (requires insurance carriers to refund the difference to enrollees if they spend more than 20% of premium costs on anything other than actual, legitimate medical care)
All of the above sounds great at first glance...but again, keep in mind that for the most part this is only because they can't touch them without 8 Democratic Senators agreeing to do so...or killing the filibuster, which they could still do. That's a hell of a Sword of Damocles to be hanging over everyone's head.











http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/3/7/1640955/-After-7-years-of-constipation-Paul-Ryan-House-GOP-finally-crap-out-their-replacement-bill

[wiggs]

1. None of this will reach the average voter. The RW merely has to issue propaganda through Fox and

the 90% of talk radio that is RW.

They don't have to come up with good legislation...they just have to tell their base it's good.