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Walker And Rubio’s ACA Replacement Plans, By The Numbers
GOP Presidential Candidates Scott Walker And Marco Rubio Release Plans to Repeal And Replace The Affordable Care Act
For the last five years, Republicans have been attacking the Affordable Care Act in word and deed. Despite the fact that a majority of Americans oppose repeal efforts, conservatives have promised to “repeal and replace” the law, and congressional Republicans have voted more than 50 times to repeal it. Yet in these five years, no Republican lawmaker has offered a real plan to provide affordable health coverage to Americans. Scott Walker and Marco Rubio’s replacement plans, released today, are no different.
Unsurprisingly, both Walker and Rubio’s plans would repeal the ACA, which would wreak havoc on the entire health care industry. Here are just a few examples showing the effect of repealing the ACA:
- 19 million: the number of people who would lose coverage, including those enrolled in marketplace plans and through Medicaid.
- 129 million: the number of people with pre-existing conditions who will no longer be protected from discrimination.
- $137 billion: the estimated increase in federal budget deficit over ten years.
- 8.7 million: the number of people receiving premium tax credits, who would lose them if the law were repealed.
Walker actually proposes giving Americans some form of tax credit to pay for health care coverage, but rather than basing tax credits on income—like the Affordable Care Act does—Walker’s plan would base tax credits on age. This could significantly hurt low-income people who could see a substantial cut to their tax credits based on Walker’s system. Not to mention the fact that, at the proposed level, Walker’s credit system would not come close to covering the cost of decent coverage. Rubio’s plan also gives no indication that his proposed tax credit would be sufficient to pay for good health care coverage.
Neither Walker nor Rubio’s plan contains new ideas. Instead, each rehashes the same old, stale conservative mantra. For instance, both support block granting Medicaid, an idea that Rep. Paul Ryan has proposed in his budget for years and which Gov. Romney endorsed in his unsuccessful 2012 bid for president. Block granting Medicaid would cripple a vital program that has provided health coverage to 80 million Americans in 2014. Although neither Walker nor Rubio provides much detail on their block grant proposals, the amount of money provided to states through block grants typically increase each year more slowly than the growth in health care costs, so block granting funding would mean Medicaid would get squeezed more and more. As a result, Paul Ryan’s Medicaid block grant proposal would lead to 14-20 million low-income people losing their health coverage.
BOTTOM LINE: The American people support the ACA, the Supreme Court upheld it, and the GOP’s continued efforts to undermine it only serve to show how out-of-touch Republican lawmakers are. The Affordable Care Act has been woven into the fabric of our health care system, repealing the law and replacing it with old, failed policies will have a devastating impact on hard working Americans.
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Feds probing Seattle schools’ treatment of black students ~We need an Update!
As the U.S. Department of Education investigates whether Seattle Public Schools discriminated against African-American students by disciplining them more frequently and more harshly, Superintendent José Banda promises to find solutions.
By Keith Ervin and Maureen O’Hagan
Seattle Times staff reporters
The numbers are stark, although Seattle school administrators and many parents have been aware of them, and troubled by them, for years.
African-American students are suspended from school more than three times as often as white students from elementary schools to high schools.
More than one-fourth of black middle schoolers have received short-term suspensions every year since 1996. Native Americans are disciplined more often than Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.
Now the U.S. Department of Education is investigating whether Seattle Public Schools discriminates against African Americans by disciplining them “more frequently and more harshly than similarly situated white students,” department spokesman Jim Bradshaw said Tuesday.
The “compliance review” began in May but didn’t become public knowledge until it was reported Tuesday by KUOW radio.
District Superintendent José Banda acknowledged problems with student discipline — and said he intends to do something about them.
Banda pledged cooperation with the investigation and said he expects the Department of Education will find disproportionate disciplining of black students.
“I think we have a serious problem here,” Banda said. “We do. We acknowledge that. We acknowledge the fact that the data is clear that there is a disproportionate number of students of color being suspended and expelled.
“It’s something that we’re moving on, in addition to working with the Department of Education, who are conducting their own review,” he said.
Seattle Public Schools has set up two advisory committees — one called Positive Climate and Discipline, the other Equity and Race — that are studying disproportionality in discipline.
Banda said he didn’t know how long the federal compliance review will take, and the Department of Education’s Bradshaw declined to provide additional information.
In September the department settled its first discipline-related compliance case in years when it reached an agreement with California’s Oakland Unified School District.
Oakland school officials agreed to avoid suspensions or expulsions as much as possible; to collaborate with experts to create positive, nondiscriminatory school climates; to give more help to at-risk students; to revise discipline policies; and to survey students, staff members and families each year.
James Bible, president of the Seattle-King County branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, welcomed the federal investigation, saying uneven treatment of races is “so deeply embedded in the fabric of this particular school district, and perhaps others in our region, that it’s absolutely necessary for outside entities to intervene.
“I think that until we have true transparency and something in place in terms of the outside looking in, we’re not going to see much in terms of change here,” Bible said.
Doug Honig, spokesman for the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington, said the group is concerned about the 50,000 students suspended or expelled in the state each year, both because of racial disparities and because too many of those students receive no education while they’re being punished.
“In effect, the suspension or expulsion can put them so far behind in schoolwork that it becomes an educational death sentence,” Honig said.
About two years ago, Seattle’s School Board asked to see statistics on expulsions.
“Those numbers showed us we had a growing problem,” said board President Kay Smith-Blum. “They showed a disproportionate amount of students being disciplined at the suspension or expulsion level in our minority groups.”
Banda and several board members said discipline policies should be clear and consistent and should, in most cases, provide a way for students to continue their studies even if they are removed from their regular classrooms.
“The goal should be, obviously, to get every kid in school so that we can teach them. It’s hard to teach a student who’s not in school,” said board member Harium Martin-Morris.
Board member Marty McLaren said she wants to shut down the “schools-to-prison pipeline” that can begin with inappropriate discipline.
Several board members and a district spokeswoman said they weren’t aware of the federal investigation, which began last year. “I just became aware of that myself,” Banda said.
The district’s new attorney, Modessa Jacobs, recently told other district officials the Department of Education was requesting district data as part of its review.
Stephanie Alter Jones, a Seatle school parent and a community organizer in Southeast Seattle, said that while she wasn’t aware of the investigation, discipline has been a topic of much debate both in Seattle and in the Legislature.
Kids who are tossed from the classroom are often “the ones most in need of the education,” she said.
Keith Ervin: 206-464-2105 or kervin@seattletimes.com
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Pop Quiz: What Do You Know About Food Safety?
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4 Myths About the Food in Your Fridge … FoodSafety.gov
Debunking Myths About Safe Food Refrigeration
September is National Food Safety Education Month! In recognition, we’re setting the facts straight when it comes to safely putting away those groceries.
In our latest blog post, FDA shares four common myths about safe food refrigeration, and what you need to know about maintaining a germ-free fridge.
Read on: National Food Safety Education Month: Debunking Myths About Safe Food Refrigeration
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