Bill that would add more than $1tn to deficit, end key element of Obamacare, and open Alaska wildlife reserve to drilling would then head to Senate
House Republicans are poised to pass a major tax bill on Tuesday, which would set the stage for Donald Trump to achieve his first major legislative success in office.
The legislation, finalized in a conference report last week, would lower the top rate on families and individuals to 37% and the top rate on corporations to 21%.
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Republican moderate Susan Collins undecided on final tax cut vote
- Maine senator who helped sink healthcare repeal voted for Senate tax bill
- Insists ‘4% cut in Medicare that could go into effect will not go into effect’
The Republican Susan Collins, whose support was crucial in passing the Senate tax reform bill earlier this month, said on Sunday she has not yet decided if she will back the final measure negotiated by House and Senate leaders.
The Maine moderate has laid out conditions for her support of a final “conference committee” version of the tax proposal. They include assurances that Medicare payments will not be cut and that Republicans will support two healthcare bills aimed at reducing premium costs.
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White House would ditch attack on Obamacare in order to pass tax bill
Budget director says ‘we’re OK’ with dropping provision of Republican tax reform that would also repeal healthcare mandate, if it becomes roadblock
The White House is willing to sacrifice Republicans’ latest attempt to dismantle Obama’s Affordable Care Act if that’s necessary to pass a series of sweeping tax cuts, Office of Management and Budget director Mick Mulvaney said on Sunday.
Republicans’ current tax reform legislation would slash corporate tax rates and benefit wealthy Americans. Last week, after the president tweeted that he wanted legislation to include a repeal of a key healthcare mandate, Senate Republicans announced they would include the healthcare measure in their tax bill.
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Fear over healthcare locks Americans in jobs – and throttles creativity | Jonathan R Goodman
What could and should make America great is the freedom to follow one’s dreams – not stay trapped in a cubicle, paralysed by fear
Millions of Americans are stuck in what some economists call “job-lock” or the inability to leave employment because of the risk of losing health insurance. A 2001 paper from Princeton’s Center for Economic Policy Studies showed, for example, that self-employed people are 25% less likely to have health insurance than office workers.
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Americans show support for Obamacare despite Trump’s repeal attempts
- Increase in healthcare signups on first day of annual enrollment
- Maine votes to expand federal Medicaid scheme for low-income Americans
Millions of Americans remain committed to Barack Obama’s landmark healthcare legislation despite the Trump administration’s attempts to overturn it.
Related: Health experts say Trump's opioid response relies on magical thinking
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The Guardian view on elections in the US: cause for (cautious) celebration | Editorial
Sizable victories for the Democrats in a series of races offer cheer after a year of Donald Trump. But the party should not feel too reassuredIt was the boost they needed. The jubilation of Democrats as they celebrated the results of Tuesday’s elections owed much to the despair of one year before, when they learned that Donald Trump was on his way to the White House, as well as to the extraordinary events since, which have amplified his unfitness for the presidency and the extent of Russia...
By the skin of his teeth: learning to walk again without health insurance
An injury left professional bull rider Joseph Dewey paralyzed – now, like countless other Americans, he’s recovering without health insurance
In the weeks after professional bull rider Joseph Dewey suffered an injury that left him paralyzed from the waist down, an outpouring of support kept him buoyed above the undertow of hopelessness and despair.
Related: ‘They’re sentencing me to death’: Medicaid recipients on the Republican healthcare plan
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The Resistance Now: health bill gains traction and handmaids protest Pence
Eighteen Senate Democrats have pledged support for ‘public’ healthcare option, while the vice-president takes heat from Margaret Atwood fans
As Trump tries to destroy the Affordable Care Act from the right of the political spectrum, those on the progressive side continue to push health reform legislation of their own - undaunted, or even in defiance, of the president.
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White House can continue withholding health subsidies, judge rules
States had called for federal government to continue making payments as broader case over subsidies makes its way through courts
A US judge has ruled that the government does not have to immediately resume paying Affordable Care Act healthcare subsidies that Donald Trump cut off.
Eighteen state attorneys general, led by the California Democrat Xavier Becerra, argued the monthly payments were required under Barack Obama’s healthcare law and cutting them off would harm consumers.
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Tracking Trump: president gives himself top marks for military bereavement calls
President claimed he ‘called every family of someone who’s died’ as tensions flared with sergeant’s relatives and later gave himself 10/10 on Puerto Rico
- Each week Trump seems to make more news than most presidents do in a lifetime. The Guardian is keeping track of it all in this series, every Saturday
It was unclear exactly what Donald Trump hoped to achieve when he decided to cut a key element of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) – subsidies to insurance companies to help them cover those on low incomes – except perhaps a sense of pure destructive joy in damaging something his predecessor built that Republicans in Congress seemed unable to dismantle. On Saturday, he, crowed that he had ended a “Dems windfall” for insurance companies.
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