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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Guardian World News
Stress is bad for your health. Today’s political uncertainty makes it worse
Americans are exposed to one of the most damaging sources of stress: uncertainty. The assault on our fundamental sense of security can make us sick
- Outclassed: The Secret Life of Inequality is our new column about class. Read all articles here
David Dobbs’ 13-year-old daughter has type 1 diabetes. Since 2015, the 59-year-old freelance writer and author has relied on Obamacare, officially known as the Affordable Care Act (ACA), to help pay for his daughter’s insulin, blood testing supplies and other medical needs. But as the endless series of cliffhangers over the fate of the ACA continues, Dobbs says he’s starting to feel hunted.
Without insurance, diabetes treatment alone would cost his family about $20,000 to $30,000 a year, he estimates – and that’s if nothing goes wrong and prompts an astronomically expensive hospitalization.
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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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‘He keeps zigging and zagging’: the perils of doing a healthcare deal with Trump
This week, senators moved to salvage the Obamacare subsidies Trump cut – but Washington remains confused over which way the president is swinging
Chuck Schumer was at the gym when his phone rang, just over a week after the latest version of the Republican effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act foundered. It was Donald Trump calling the most senior Democrat in the Senate with an idea.
Related: Senators reach bipartisan deal to salvage Obamacare subsidies Trump eliminated
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Senators reach bipartisan deal to salvage Obamacare subsidies Trump eliminated
Republican Lamar Alexander and Democrat Patty Murray reach deal to help insurance companies cover medical needs of low-income Americans
Senators have moved to salvage Obamacare following Donald Trump’s decision last week to scrap critical subsidies that underpin the health law.
Republican senator Lamar Alexander announced on Tuesday that he had reached a deal with Democrat Patty Murray to fund the federal payments – intended to help insurance companies cover the medical needs of low-income Americans – in exchange for allowing states more regulatory flexibility under the Affordable Care Act.
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McConnell and Trump put on show of unity as Bannon urges Republican ‘war’
- President says he and Senate leader are ‘closer than ever before’
- ‘He is failing’: Trump strikes out solo as friends worry and enemies circle
Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell appeared side-by-side in the Rose Garden after lunch at the White House on Monday in a show of solidarity after the president’s former chief strategist called for the metaphorical assassination of the Senate majority leader.
Trump insisted he and McConnell are “closer than ever before”, despite publicly criticizing the Republican leader for the Senate’s failure to enact the president’s legislative agenda, including Republicans’ failure to repeal the Affordable Care Act, which Trump called a “disgrace”.
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Trump claims ‘Obamacare is dead’ despite failure to repeal legislation
- ‘It’s gone. There is no such thing as Obamacare any more’
- President slashed federal healthcare subsidies for lower-income Americans
Donald Trump on Monday absolved himself of responsibility for Republicans’ failure to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and predicted that voters will blame Democrats if the law crumbles under a sustained assault from his administration.
Related: McConnell and Trump meet for lunch after Bannon calls for Republican 'war'
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