Leaders of the conservative and moderate wings of House Republican conference believe that they have a brand new deal that will revive the AHCA or the American Health Care Act.
The updated deal will keep the core insurance reforms of Obamacare. But, it will also give states the capability to waive them once a high-risk pool has been set up. If a certain state takes the option, the health plans would be charging sick people even more for their insurance. They will also be offered lesser plans.
US President, Donald Trump, finally gave an ultimatum saying that he is already done with the negotiations. He now wants the vote to be over and done with. Two weeks ago, the Trump administration was humiliated because they had to postpone the vote on repealing the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare. They had to do so because there weren’t enough Republicans votes for “yes.”
According to numerous reports, at least 29 Republicans say that they won’t support Trumpcare with its previous incarnation. Trumpcare 3.0 is the third attempt of the Trump administration and they are hopeful that it will finally get the approval they need.
And yet, there are two critical points that everyone should understand here.
Republicans still don’t have the votes. A collection of moderate and conservative aides were asked, as well as lobbyists of the GOP. Nobody is sure that this new tweak will give the bill 216 votes. The White House has been pushing a plan to get the votes on Wednesday, but it looks unrealistic.
AHCA’s failure is, of course, the first political major embarrassment for Pres. Trump. The President approaches his 100-day milestone, yet it still has no legislative accomplishments. In addition to that, the Trump administration still has no move that’s set for the tax reform bill. The activity on the country’s health care may as well be nothing.
Lawmakers tried shifting the blame either to the opposite group or to the Senate.
One GOP lobbyist said that the House is trying to save its face. The same person said that it couldn’t care less about whatever happens to the bill in the Senate.
It seems like the bill is stuck in a deliberately cruel cycle as lawmakers attempt to appease GOP’s extremes.
Every policy concept to satisfy conservatives forms a brand new issue for the moderates. This in turn leads to a brand new policy that will satisfy everybody. In this loop, there’s not much chance for a final version everyone can agree to.
The latest tweak to AHCA illustrates it perfectly:
Once the bill is passed, insurers will be prevented from denying coverage basing on the medical history of a person because of the letter of law. So, moderates will claim that they’re protecting those with pre-existing conditions. However, to appease uber conservatives, states are allowed to deny insurance reforms that prohibit plans from increasing premiums because of pre-existing conditions. Yet, without the policies, the prohibition of outright discrimination won’t matter. People with conditions will be at risk again because plans will surely hike premiums. They could also tweak benefits in order to weed out the costly patients.
