Conservatives are using the courts to attack health care for all Americans

  Conservative state officials, in conjunction with the Trump administration, have launched an all-out attack on health care in the United States. They have brought a suit to overturn the entirety of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), which would have serious consequences for nearly every American who has health coverage, whether through their employer, the individual market, Medicare, or Medicaid. And they found a partisan judge who proved willing to ignore the rule of law and help them advance their political agenda through the courts.

The Trump premium tax will increase premiums up to $2,500 next year

  Since he entered office, President Donald Trump has taken numerous steps to sabotage the Affordable Care Act (ACA) by driving up costs and driving out insurers. With the failure of ACA repeal in the U.S. Senate, Trump has threatened to accelerate his efforts. In particular, by undermining enforcement of the ACA’s individual coverage mandate and threatening to stop billions of dollars in cost-sharing reduction (CSR) payments that help lower consumers’ deductibles and copayments, Trump will significantly increase 2018 premiums.

For many rural Southerners, no health care to lose

  Last week, the Senate took a series of votes aimed at repealing parts or all of the Affordable Care Act. Under any of the plans put forth by Republicans – all voted down thus far – millions of Americans would lose their health care coverage, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

  But in places like southwestern Virginia, many simply have no health insurance — or access to medical care — to lose.

  Last weekend, more than 2,000 people in Wise, Virginia, waited in long lines and sweltering heat for basic health services from the Remote Area Medical Expedition. At a county fairground over a period of three days, volunteer doctors pulled teeth, performed chest X-rays, tested insulin levels, and handed out eyeglasses to people too poor or too sick to get health care any other way.

Senate repeal bill will increase average costs for exchange enrollees by $2,294

  Now that the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has released its score of the Senate’s Better Care Reconciliation Act (BCRA), it is clear why the Senate majority worked so hard to keep the text of the bill a secret. The truth is now out: an estimated 22 million people would lose coverage under the BCRA compared to the ACA.

  But the people who would lose coverage are not the only ones who would be worse off. Many Americans who kept their insurance would still face higher costs under the BCRA. For the average marketplace enrollee in 2026, the BCRA would raise their total costs, including net premiums plus cost-sharing, by $2,294.

Sam Berger: Trump’s new plan to penalize the sick

  Republicans need to stop making a terrible health care bill even worse. A little over a week ago, President Donald Trump declared that the White House would be moving on from its efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act, or ACA. However, in an abrupt about-face, the administration is now reportedly considering a new proposal in an attempt to reinvigorate talks: allowing insurers to drastically raise prices on people with pre-existing conditions, even to the point of preventing them from obtaining insurance at all.

  First Republicans had a proposal that would lead to skyrocketing uninsurance and out-of-pocket costs while increasing premiums. Then they argued for driving up coverage prices for services like maternity care and substance abuse treatment while simultaneously weakening protections for employer-provided insurance. Now they’re threatening to eliminate protections for the up to 133 million individuals who have pre-existing conditions.

Cassidy-Collins ACA ‘replacement’ plan forces states to choose from three bad options

  When Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) promoted his ACA “replacement” proposal, introduced this week with Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), he said, “Republicans think that if you like your insurance, you should keep it.” Yet a review of the Cassidy-Collins legislative text shows that the bill falls short on that promise.

  Under the proposal, the Patient Freedom Act of 2017, states must choose from one of three options: (1) to continue implementing the Affordable Care Act, or ACA, albeit with reduced funding for the financial assistance that makes coverage affordable for lower- and moderate-income individuals; (2) to opt for the legislation’s preferred State Alternative Option; or (3) to reject any federal funding, though the state would still have to follow some ACA provisions.

Robert E. Moffit: Here's how Congress can save Medicare

  When will Medicare’s hospital insurance trust fund run out of money? A newly released report from the Medicare Trustees says it will be exhausted in 2028—two years earlier than they projected last year. Using slightly different assumptions, the Congressional Budget Office earlier predicted that the trust fund would be insolvent by 2026.

  No matter how you slice it, the fund meets neither short-term nor long-term standards of “financial adequacy” (to use the trustees’ term). But the Trust Fund’s precarious financial state is merely the symptom of a more serious problem: the growth of Medicare spending and financial burdens on seniors and taxpayers.

Justice waits for a nine-member Supreme Court

  Within an hour of the news of Justice Antonin Scalia’s passing on February 13, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said the Senate should not consider any U.S. Supreme Court nominee until the next president is inaugurated in 2017. Since then, most Senate Republicans have signed on to Sen. McConnell’s obstructionist threat, including Judiciary Committee Chair Charles Grassley (R-IA). This dereliction of constitutional duty is unprecedented. The longest it has ever taken for a Supreme Court nominee to reach a confirmation vote is 125 days.

  In 2012, the American people re-elected President Barack Obama to do his job for another four years, and that job includes fulfilling his constitutional obligation to fill any vacancies on the Supreme Court. Likewise, the Senate must do its job and “advise and consent” on the nominee. The Constitution contains no exception to those obligations for presidential election years.

Jacob G. Hornberger: Conservatives and the free market

  One of things that conservatives love to tell people is how devoted to the free market they are. A recent example involved GOP presidential candidate Marco Rubio, who criticized Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders for being socialists while Rubio, as a conservative, was supposedly devoted to free enterprise.

  What a joke. Conservatives are no more devoted to the free market than leftists are. They just like to tell themselves that and others as well. But their pro-free-enterprise proclamations are nothing more than empty bromides and pabulum.

The 50th Anniversary of Medicare and Medicaid: Providing hope for the ACA’s future

  Last week marked the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Social Security Amendments of 1965, which introduced Medicare and Medicaid into the American health care system. The programs currently enjoy widespread public support, with the majority of Americans indicating that Medicare and Medicaid, respectively, are “important to them and their family.” But the popularity of these programs stands in stark contrast to the political resistance they faced before their passage.

Hank Sanders: Senate Sketches #1465: An open letter to Dr. Ben Carson

Dear Dr. Carson:

  I appreciate your excellent accomplishments as a physician. I am truly impressed by your great medical skills and leadership. I was inspired by how you overcame huge odds to become a world-renowned surgeon. I was glad to see you considering running for president as a Republican. Then you absolutely shocked me. I was shocked when you said that the Affordable Care Act, widely known as ObamaCare, “is the worst thing since slavery.” Your words pierced my heart and weighed on my spirit.

The Great Cost Shift: Why middle-class workers do not feel the health care spending slowdown

  In recent years, the growth in overall health care costs has slowed dramatically. But for millions of Americans with employer-sponsored insurance, or ESI, this slowdown is illusory. From 2008 through 2013, the average annual growth rate of employees’ monthly premium contributions and out-of-pocket expenses, adjusted for inflation, was more than double that of average annual growth in real per-capita national health care spending, which was less than 2 percent per year. This growth has also outpaced employers’ costs of offering these benefits by more than 40 percent.

  Employees experiencing higher health care costs tend to blame the Affordable Care Act, or ACA, even though the law largely leaves the employer-based system alone. In fact, many employers report that the ACA has had only a negligible influence on their health care costs.

Sally Steenland: Wise as serpents but harmless as doves

  I thought of Jesus the other day when I read about the Obama administration’s latest effort to provide women with the health care they need. In late August, the Obama administration announced yet another set of rules for insurance plans’ birth control coverage in response to a seemingly unending series of objections by employers and other opponents. Their complaint? That having to include contraceptive coverage in their insurance plans under the Affordable Care Act, or ACA, violates their religious liberty.

Re-establishing religious liberty post-Hobby Lobby

  Religious liberty is woven into the very fabric of our nation. It defines the boundaries of our government and serves as a measuring stick of freedom. We are a nation of diverse religious beliefs and of no religious belief. From our nation’s earliest days, our Constitution has ensured both the freedom to worship and believe according to one’s conscience, as well as freedom from the government imposing religion upon its people or coercing them to follow beliefs that are not their own. This is the very essence of religious liberty.

Cameron Smith: Does Alabama already have a better healthcare model than the Medicaid expansion?

  Ever since the U.S. Supreme Court provided states with the opportunity to reject the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) Medicaid expansion without jeopardizing existing Medicaid funds, the expansion has become a political football.

  Governor Bentley has called the ACA Medicaid expansion “a federal government dependency program for the uninsured.” On the other end of the political spectrum, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Parker Griffith claims that growing Medicaid will generate “30,700 new jobs, [a] $2.1 billion economic boost, plus 500 lives saved every year.”

Steve Flowers: Inside the Statehouse: The cost of legislative pandering

  The 2014 regular legislative session of the Alabama Legislature, which ended last month, was the last of the quadrennium. It ended on the same note it began on four years ago. This group of super majority Republican legislators has placed an indelible conservative stamp on Alabama state government.

  There has been no benchmark right wing social issue that they have failed to address. They began in the first year with what they proclaimed was the most pervasive anti illegal immigrant legislation in the country. It was quickly cast aside in a cursory federal court opinion as unconstitutional.

Cameron Smith: Five questions to ask Alabama’s federal candidates

  Alabama’s Sixth Congressional District, which encompasses the suburbs of Birmingham, may be the only hotly contested election this cycle, but that is no excuse for voters to give the remaining federal candidates a free pass on detailing their solutions to the challenges facing Alabama and the nation.

Cameron Smith: Five questions to ask Alabama’s state candidates for elected office

  Although Alabama’s primary elections are held in June, the political season is well underway. Positions on religious liberty, gun rights and abortion remain a virtual litmus test for Alabama’s more-conservative voters, but most state politicians are well versed at navigating them every four years.

  Even the clearest answers on those issues leave unanswered questions about critical issues facing the State of Alabama. Here are five additional questions that Alabama’s voters should ask candidates for state office this year:

Brandon Demyan: Medicaid overdose: Bigger is not better

  Much has been made about the continual refusal by Governor Robert Bentley to expand Medicaid. In the push to pass the Patient Protection & Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), President Obama explained in 2009 that "we can’t simply put more people into a broken system that doesn’t work." Medicaid was originally created to provide healthcare to pregnant women, children, and the disabled. Instead of reforming the broken system, Obamacare simply expanded Medicaid to include all able-bodied adults earning up to 138% of the federal poverty line.

Cameron Smith: America’s shift from rule of law to rule by executive branch

  The "rule of law" has served as the backbone of democracy from America’s founding. First, all Americans agree to be held accountable under the law. To secure that consent, the process to enact, administer and enforce those laws must be transparent, democratically accessible, and impartial. While that process has rarely been perfect, it has consistently created stable, predictable laws that serve as the guiderails for civil society.

  The last several decades have marked a continued erosion of the rule of law in America’s federal government. The gradual change has resulted from Congress ceding its constitutional powers, leaving essentially a type of ad hoc rule by the President and the executive branch agencies.