Yep. We tried telling people, and were pilloried for it.
Posted on 01/27/2015 3:03:33 PM PST by Libloather
Senate Republicans are preparing a legislative plan of action in case the Supreme Court strikes a major blow against ObamaCare and rules subsidies provided to people on the federal exchange are illegal.
GOP senators are confident the justices will rule in their favor, and they want to be ready to act if millions of people lose their subsidies to buy insurance through the healthcare law.
“If the Supreme Court were to say the law says what the law says, we would like to be ready with a response to that that makes practical sense for the 5 or 6 million Americans who would be affected,” said Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), who is heading the effort along with Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Republican Policy Committee Chairman John Barrasso (R-Wyo.).
Senate Budget Committee Chairman Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.) and Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) are also participating.
The legislative plan could also be a plan B for repealing the entire law, which looks unlikely as long as President Obama is in the White House.
“It just makes no sense not to have a viable alternative there as a plan B,” said Sen. Dan Coats (R-Ind.).
He said plan A is to vote to repeal the law but acknowledged “it’s hard to see it succeeding.”
The Supreme Court announced in November that it would hear arguments for the case King v. Burwell, in which plaintiffs contend the text of the 2010 Affordable Care Act does not allow the federal government to give subsidies for people to buy insurance in states that have not set up their own exchanges.
“The courts are likely to decide against ObamaCare. The language is totally unambiguous. I don’t see how they can ignore the unambiguous language that is clear-cut,” said Hatch.
He said Republicans must be ready to put forth their own ideas for dealing with people who are stripped of subsidies once the court rules.
“It does mean that we’ll have to resolve the problems that result from that. I don’t think there’s going to be a simple one-page amendment to resolve it,” he said.
“I’m going to attend the beginning meetings to see if there’s a way forward,” said Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.). “If in June the Supreme Court were to rule the way most of us think they will or could or should, obviously we need to be prepared and we need to be talking about what we believe those solutions to be in advance.”
While Alexander said the group will be open to other Republican senators, some are still waiting for an invitation.
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) said he would like to participate but added “they have to let me in.”
The Supreme Court is expected to hear oral arguments in March and issue a ruling in June. The decision could bar federal subsidies in the 34 states that did not create their own insurance exchanges.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit ruled in July that the federal government could provide subsidies in states without their own exchanges, while a three-judge panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled for the challengers. The full D.C. Circuit, however, decided to rehear the case.
A spokeswoman for Barrasso said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) asked her boss to form the healthcare working group with Alexander — chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee — and other senators.
“They are considering a variety of healthcare ideas that will lower costs and improve care for Americans,” said Emily Schillinger, Barrasso’s aide.
Alexander said the guiding principle is to let people keep their health insurance plans if they like them, but it may not be an easy task if the federal government is barred from providing subsidies in some states.
He said if people decide to keep the plan they have, they would have to pay for it.
“If they couldn’t afford it, then they could go to a different, less expensive policy that they could afford,” he said.
The specifics need to be hammered out.
“We don’t have a proposal yet. We have a goal to repair the damage of ObamaCare,” he said. “We’re a few weeks away from that.”
One possible option is the Care Act, unveiled by Hatch, Burr and then-Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) a year ago.
The bill’s sponsors say it would create new protection for Americans with pre-existing conditions, help small businesses and individuals with purchasing power, limit medical malpractice lawsuits, cap the tax exclusion for employer-provided health coverage and make other reforms.
Under their proposal, a continuous coverage provision would protect individuals with pre-existing condition. People could not be denied coverage because of a health problem as long as they remain continuously enrolled in a health plan without a significant break in coverage, according to a summary provided by the sponsors.
Democrats panned the proposal at the time.
Jeremy Funk, spokesman for Americans United for Change, an advocacy group allied with Democrats, said the continuous coverage proposal was taken from Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign and would leave tens of millions of people without insurance.
“Making it legal again for big insurance to discriminate against and deny coverage to 89 million Americans with pre-existing conditions is not an alternative, it’s a joke,” Funk said after the proposal’s introduction.
A group of centrist Democrats including Sens. Joe Manchin (W.Va.), Mark Warner (Va.) and Heidi Heitkamp (N.D.) last year introduced ObamaCare reforms.
One proposal was to provide a new high-deductible health insurance option known as the Copper Plan that would cost less while still meeting the standards of the Affordable Care Act.
Another idea was to give small businesses more time to take advantage of healthcare tax credits and expand them to businesses with fewer than 50 employees instead of limiting these benefits to business with fewer than 25 employees.
Don’t rely on feeling that the Supreme Court will rule in favor or the law. This group of lawless fools wouldn’t know the difference between saving America or further putting it down the crap hole.
The GOPe can ruin our health care / insurance industry better than the democrats can ruin our health care / insurance industry.
Utterly speechless. They are going to try to fix this socialist piece of crap.
Plan B:
Call the President, it’s HIS PLAN
(Exempt) Alexander is as dense as a load of bricks. Those less expensive policies have ridiculous deductibles and few providers in their networks. It is an enormous mess!
GOPe sez...
“The Democrats can’t do subsidies like we can do subsidies. We gonna buy us some 2016 votes.”
It’s too late to fix anything. We have eaten our seed corn and now that the insurance companies are now government cronies addicted to the public teat there will be no going back to the way things were.
I hope the GOP is not planning treason. Obamacare is the most deadly law ever passed in this country and must be killed by any means necessary. They cannot be forgiven if they fund this. The correct answer is to pass a bill forbidding any illegal payments for Obamacare subsidies and repealing the individual and corporate requirements to participate in Obamacare. The communist in our White House cannot veto a bill that exempts people who cannot afford Obamacare, and that exemption would kill this terrible law.
If the GOPe does anything to keep Obamacare on life support, it’s time to give up on restoring freedom through the ballot box. At that point, this could get ugly.
This is what we get when we’re loyal to a party that’s not loyal to us.
I don’t make threats in haste or insincerely. But if they do this, I’m unregistered a a Republican immediately, and I suspect it would end the party within two years, tops.
Why? There is no "problem."
The law gave the states an option, and only a few states took up that option. Was that a "problem" to be fixed?
Since when is states exercising their sovereign powers a "problem" to be fixed?
Why not just leave it to the states to solve for themselves? Either that, or just repeal the whole thing.
-PJ
Contrast Cruz’ Repeal Every Word to Joni Ernst’s SOTU Repeal And Replace.
Ohhhhhh, I’m a shakin’ with anticipation!
0bama takes everything started by someone else and runs it to hell.
The problem is that Republican governors will be accused of wanting the poor to die, etc. because they are failing to help those who lose their O-care subsidies. Unfortunately, the tactic will probably work. Republicans are scared to death of being called mean.
The only real solution to health care and insurance is complete freedom to buy whatever kind of health insurance you want or none at all. We need less insurance and government out of health care if we want cost to go down and quality and access to increase. For decades, government has been taking over both insurance and health care by mandates on what must be covered and being the main payer via Medicare and Medicaid.
I don’t see good sense prevailing, and I would not be surprised to see the socialists get their dream of a single-payer, government-run system become a reality.
No money from me....
Yep. We tried telling people, and were pilloried for it.
If the Republicans would just engage, they might find that reality is different from their nightmares.
-PJ
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