WASHINGTON
— The former chairman of one of the House committees that drafted
legislation to repeal and replace large parts of the Affordable Care Act
came out against a new version of the bill on Tuesday, saying the
measure now “torpedoes” protections for people with pre-existing medical
conditions.
Representative
Fred Upton of Michigan, who chaired the House Energy and Commerce
Committee as the Affordable Care Act repeal movement built steam,
declared on a local radio show,
“I cannot support the bill with this provision in it,” just as House
Speaker Paul D. Ryan was insisting that the legislation would protect
the sick.
The
loss of Mr. Upton, an influential Republican voice on health care, was a
huge blow, and it came as Republican leaders faced an onslaught of
advocacy groups, political attack ads and even a late-night talk show host, Jimmy Kimmel, saying the bill would harm the nation’s most vulnerable citizens.
A
tearful Mr. Kimmel on Monday night offered up the story of his infant
son’s near-death heart surgery, followed by an appeal to Congress not to
undermine the Affordable Care Act’s ban on discrimination against
people with pre-existing medical conditions. After Mr. Kimmel’s
monologue went viral on the Internet, former President Barack Obama
piled on, tweeting:
Mr.
Upton was explicit: The concessions made to win over the hard-line
conservatives in the House Freedom Caucus were costing the leadership
support from more moderate Republicans.
Continue reading the main story
ADVERTISEMENT
Continue reading the main story
“I’m not at all comfortable with removing that protection,” Mr. Upton said of the pre-existing condition concession.
Graphic
Which Republicans Will Vote No? What 6 News Organizations Are Reporting
Negotiations over the G.O.P. health care replacement
bill are continuing. Here, we compile six news organizations’ estimates
of the vote count.
President Trump, whose advisers have been pressing aggressively for a vote on the health care overhaul,
seemed oblivious to the latest setback for the measure on Tuesday.
“How’s health care coming folks, how’s it doing — alright?” Mr. Trump
said, addressing Republican lawmakers attending a trophy award ceremony
in the White House Rose Garden for the United States Air Force Academy’s
football team. “We’re moving along? It think it’s time now, right?”
No
response was audible from those in attendance, but the president
addressed the rest of the crowd, adding, “They know it’s time.”
Mr.
Ryan insisted that Republicans were “making very good progress with our
members,” but he offered no indication of when a vote might be held on
the measure. Trump administration officials have said a vote could come
as early as Wednesday, but as House Republican leaders scrambled to
assemble a majority, a quick vote appeared unlikely.
“There
are a few layers of protections for pre-existing conditions in this
bill,” Mr. Ryan said at a news conference. “What’s important is we want
to have a situation where people can afford their health insurance. We want to have a situation where people have a choice of health insurers. That’s not happening in Obamacare.”
Mr.
Ryan and his fellow Republican leaders, under intense pressure from the
White House, are struggling to round up the support for a revised
version of their bill to repeal and replace President Barack Obama’s
signature domestic achievement.
After
the failure of their earlier repeal bill in March, they have held off
moving forward with a vote while they try to build support for the
updated measure.
At
the heart of the debate is an amendment to the repeal bill proposed by
Representative Tom MacArthur, Republican of New Jersey, with the
blessing of House Republican leaders.
The
amendment won over the hard-line House Freedom Caucus last week, in
part by giving state governments the ability to apply for waivers from
the existing law’s required “essential health benefits,” such as
maternity, mental health
and emergency care, and from rules that generally mandate the same
rates for people of the same age, regardless of their medical
conditions.
The
MacArthur amendment has given pause to numerous moderate Republicans,
in large part because of concerns over whether it would allow states to
gut those consumer protections.
As
Mr. Ryan was defending the plan, the Association of American Medical
Colleges came out against it, joining the American Medical Association
and a host of disease advocacy groups. Dr. Darrell G. Kirch, the
president and chief executive of the medical colleges group, said the
newest version of the repeal bill “dilutes protections for many
Americans and would leave individuals with pre-existing conditions
facing higher premiums and reduced access to vital care.”
Under
the amendment, states could obtain a waiver from a provision of the
Affordable Care Act that prohibits insurers from charging higher rates
to people with pre-existing conditions.
With
a waiver, states could permit insurers to charge higher premiums based
on the “health status” of a person who had experienced a gap in
coverage. To qualify for a waiver, a state would have to have an
alternative mechanism such as a high-risk pool or a reinsurance program
to provide or subsidize coverage for people with serious illnesses.
“States
can’t leave people with pre-existing conditions high and dry,” Mr.
MacArthur said Tuesday, defending his proposal. “They must have a risk
pool, which would protect people from being priced out of the market.”
Mr. Ryan is struggling to win the public-relations battle over how his legislation would affect consumers.
On
his TV show Monday, Mr. Kimmel delivered a tearful opening monologue in
which he revealed that his newborn son had been found to have severe
heart defects, and he went on to talk about the issue of pre-existing
conditions.
“Whatever
your party, whatever you believe, whoever you support, we need to make
sure that the people who are supposed to represent us, the people who
are meeting about this right now in Washington, understand that very
clearly: Let’s stop with the nonsense,” Mr. Kimmel said. “This isn’t
football. There are no teams. We are the team, it’s the United States.
Don’t let their partisan squabbles divide us on something every decent
person wants. We need to take care of each other.”
Both the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and the Democratic super PAC American Bridge are running attack ads to undermine Republican support.
NYT
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment