GOP rushes to pass Trumpcare through irregular order

The next 11 days are critical for health care advocates who are looking to safeguard the Affordable Care Act (ACA), as September 30 marks the deadline for passing an ACA repeal bill with just 50 votes, according to typical Senate rules. But the next two weeks will also be a test of whether lawmakers care about these rules and precedents in the first place.

After repeated failed attempts to repeal and replace the ACA, Republican lawmakers are yet again rushing through a health bill w...

The GOP’s on the verge of passing a bill that will phase out Medicaid in its entirety

Senate Republicans are on the cusp of passing a bill that will eliminate hundreds of billions of dollars worth of health funding, destabilize insurance markets, and eventually phase out Medicaid in its entirety. Less than two months after three Republican senators stopped an earlier effort to strip away much of America’s health care safety net, millions of Americans’ health care is now in very serious peril.

The new Trumpcare legislation — often referred to as R...

Congress is extremely close to repealing Obamacare

The last Affordable Care Act (ACA) repeal bill left standing had a dubious chance of passing the Senate. But now, Senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) are reportedly weighing whether they could support the Cassidy-Graham bill, which would repeal ACA subsidies and the Medicaid expansion and instead give states a temporary block grant.

McCain tells @GarrettHaake he wants bipartisan bill with wks of hearings. BUT may "reluctantly" back Gr...

Why is Sen. Cassidy obsessed with Obamacare repeal-and-replace when people who voted for him aren’t?

The Cassidy-Graham bill — the last Affordable Care Act (ACA) repeal and replacement bill left standing — has a dubious chance of passing. It currently has the same problem past iterations of Republican Senate health bills had: it can’t get 50 votes.

The bill — authored by Senators Bill Cassidy (R-LA) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) — starting in 2020, would repeal ACA subsidies and the Medicaid expansion. Instead, states would be given temporary block grants....

Why turning public health care into ‘block grants’ can’t work

Senators Bill Cassidy (R-LA) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) released their bill to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA) Wednesday — the last GOP plan left standing.

The chances for the bill to pass are slim to none. It needs to be scored by the Congressional Budget Office and cleared by the Senate parliamentarian — the designated health care referee — to see if it adheres to budget rules. Additionally, many critical lawmakers have said that the Senate needs ...

This is how Bernie Sanders wants to implement single-payer

Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-VT) Medicare for All bill would eliminate out-of-pocket costs and deductibles for any resident of the United States, as well as build on the health care services covered by the Affordable Care Act, according to an executive summary and outline of the bill provided to ThinkProgress.

Sanders, a longtime single-payer advocate, will hold a press conference on Wednesday afternoon to detail his policy ideas for transforming the current health care landscape.<...

The Senate is rehashing an old GOP idea during the Affordable Care Act stabilization talks

While some Democrats pivot to single payer legislation this week, the immediate health policy agenda item is shoring up the 2018 Affordable Care Act (ACA) individual marketplace in time for September 27, the final deadline for insurers to decide if they’ll participate or not. The Senate’s Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) committee is resuming hearings Tuesday on how best to stabilize the marketplace this week, and one theme continues to dominate bipartisan negotiations: s...

How governors want to fix the finicky Obamacare marketplace

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) marketplace is less competitive than the drafters intended it to be. President Barack Obama once said the marketplace — where people can shop online for health insurance and compare plans — would be like an “Expedia for health care.” But if Expedia were anything like the ACA, people in some states would log on and see just one airline listed. In Virginia, they’d log on and see no listings at all.

To date, 1,476 counties are...