Tag Archives: Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act

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Obsessed


By ThinkProgress War Room

37th Time’s the Charm?

Tomorrow, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives will once again vote to repeal Obamacare. If this sounds familiar it is because it is the 37th time — yes, that’s 3-7 — that House Republicans have tried to repeal Obamacare.

This obsession has not come for free, either in terms of time nor money. One estimate pegs the cost to taxpayers of these 37 repeal attempts at some $55 MILLION. What could we do with that same $55 MILLION? Here’s four ideas:

1. Restore cuts from sequestration to Title X family planning programs and Title V maternal and child health services. The National Women’s Law Center calculates that a 5 percent cut to the budgets of each program will reduce them by $15 million and $32.5 million, respectively. Rather than voting to repeal a bill that expands women’s access to preventative services, the House could use the money to expand them.

2. Double the Department of Justice’s budget for sexual assault services, which has currently been authorized a $50 million budget. The program gives money to states so that they can support rape crisis centers and other nongovernmental organizations that provide direct intervention, core services, and other assistance to the victims of sexual assault. Current funding is inadequate, as some states receive less than $300,000 and many programs lack the resources to meet victims’ needs.

3. Grant a request for $50 million to train 5,000 new mental health professionals as part of a new initiative to expand mental health treatment and prevention services. This proposal came in the wake of the Sandy Hook shooting to address gaps in the mental health system.

4. Help states implement paid leave policies. President Obama included a $50 million State Paid Leave Fund in his 2011 budget to provide start-up support for states that want to enact paid leave for workers. More than 40 percent of workers don’t have access to paid sick leave, heading to work when they or their family members experience an illness, but this funding could help give them a better option.

In terms of time, this calculation from the New York Times shows why this is one of the most unproductive Congresses in history:

That means that since 2011, Republicans have spent no less than 15 percent of their time on the House floor on repeal in some way.

The real cost, of course, comes in terms of the more than 100 MILLION Americans who would be harmed by the GOP’s obsession with taking away their health care benefits, including:

  • 129 MILLION Americans with pre-existing conditions who will once again be at the mercy of the insurance companies.
  • 105 MILLION Americans would see lifetime limits on what their insurance company has to cover, which Obamacare banned, put back in place.
  • 71 MILLION Americans, including 34 MILLION seniors, who are currently eligible for no-cost preventive care, including mammograms and birth control.
  • 18 MILLION middle-class Americans who will receive a tax credit averaging $4,000 a year starting next year.
  • 17 MILLION children with pre-existing conditions who today, as we speak, cannot be denied coverage.
  • 13 MILLION consumers who received more than $1 BILLION in rebates last year because of an Obamacare rule requiring insurers to spend 80 percent of premiums on actual medical care would no longer be eligible for such rebates because insurers would no longer be held to such a standard.
  • 6 MILLION young adults who are currently able to stay on their parents’ insurance — 3.1 MILLION of whom were previously uninsured.
  • 6 MILLION seniors who are receiving discounts — more than $6 BILLION worth so far — on their prescription drugs thanks to Obamacare.

In addition, repealing Obamacare would increase the deficit by more than $100 BILLION over the next ten years and eliminate new resources to fight fraud. These fraud fighting efforts have recouped $4.2 BILLION just this past fiscal year from those seeking to defraud seniors and taxpayers.

BOTTOM LINE: The GOP’s obsession with taking away health care benefits from more than 100 MILLION Americans is a waste of time, a waste of money, and harmful to the tens of millions of Americans already benefiting from Obamacare.

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37 Times the Charm


 

National Women's Law Center
 
 
     
  People Before Politics  
     
   
     
                  Tell Congress to oppose the repeal of the health care law.  
     
  Take Action  
     

Thirty-six. That’s how many times some leaders in Congress have forced a vote on repealing the health care law. But there’s nothing like lucky 37. Yep, you heard me right — this week, the House of Representatives is poised to vote for the 37th time to repeal the health care law.
Tell your Representative to oppose the repeal of the health care law.
They know this is the law of the land, but they have decided to waste time and taxpayer dollars by holding this vote to play to their political base. Here are three reasons why repealing the health care law would hurt Americans:

  • Nearly 27 million women would stop getting preventive services without co-pays.
  • More than 3 million young adults would lose the health coverage they get from their parents’ health plans.
  • 129 million Americans with pre-existing conditions would continue to be at the mercy of the insurance industry.

Enough already! Congress needs to stop the politics and get back to the people’s work. Tell your Representative to oppose the repeal of the health care law.
Thank you for all you do for women and their families.
Sincerely,
 
Judy Waxman   Judy Waxman Vice President for Health and Reproductive Rights National Women’s Law Center      

P.S. Help us continue to make a difference in the lives of women and their families. Make a generous contribution today.
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Senators …


By  ThinkProgress War Room

10 Terrible Amendments Offered Today by Senators

The Senate has been debating the Democratic budget for the past few days. One of the quirks of Senate rules means that the amendment process on the budget is completely open, allowing senators to file and request a vote on an unlimited number of amendments. They don’t even have to say what their amendments are in advance, but many still choose to file them in advance. Since the process is so open, a rarity in the gridlocked Senate, senators often use this opportunity to file highly political message amendments. We sifted through the more than 400 amendments filed and found dozens that are terrible, ridiculous,  nonsensical, damaging, or just plain crazy. Here’s a look at ten of those proposals.

  1. BOSS IN YOUR BEDROOM: Sens. Fischer (R-NE), Cruz (R-TX), Johanns (R-NE), and Enzi (R-WY) introduced an amendment to put your boss in your bedroom by allowing them to deny you birth control coverage based on their beliefs, not yours. This is just one of numerous anti-Obamacare amendments offered by Republicans. Incidentally, the law turns three tomorrow. 42 GOP senators and 2 Democrats voted for this amendment.
  2. NRA-FUELED CONSPIRACY THEORIES: Sen. Inhofe (R-OK) offered an amendment that would prevent the U.S. from signing on to the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty. The NRA and other right-wing groups falsely claim that this is some backdoor gun grab, which led the Senate to fail to ratify the treaty last year. The NRA is currently making a full court press to kill or at least gut the treaty. Sen. Vitter (R-LA) offered a similar amendment that would prohibit the U.N. from registering or taxing Americans’ guns, something the organization obviously has no plans to do.
  3. HOUSE GOP BUDGET: While Republicans found time to cook up hundreds of other amendments, it seems no Republican senator wanted to vote on the House GOP budget as a substitute for the Senate Democratic plan. When Democrats offered the draconian Ryan plan that ends Medicare and raises taxes on the middle class in order to slash them on the wealthy, a measly 40 GOP senators voted for the plan from their counterparts in the House. Three GOP senators, however, voted against it because it wasn’t extreme enough.
  4. GIVEAWAY TENS OF BILLIONS TO WALL STREET BANKS: In the same so-called “reconciliation” bill that was necessary to finish passing Obamacare was a provision that stopped routing federal student loans through the big banks. Previously, the banks acted as a middleman between the federal government and borrowers, reaping billions in fees each year even though they bore no risk because the government was the one guaranteeing the loans. The banks role was eliminated in 2010 and the money was shifted to Pell grants. Earlier today, Republicans put forward an  amendment to repeal all of the Obamacare bill, including the student loan reforms. This would literally take money away from students and hand it over to the Wall Street banks. 45 Republicans backed this proposal, which also was the third time this week that GOP senators forced a vote on repealing Obamacare.
  5. OBAMAPHONE: One of the more racially-charged moments in last year’s presidential campaign came when Republican groups promoted a video of an African-American woman proclaiming her support for Obama because, she said, the government was giving out free cell phones, among other things. The Drudge Report and other right-wing media immediately dubbed this the “Obamaphone” controversy. As it turned out, the FCC’s Lifeline program offering free cell phones to low-income Americans began under President George W. Bush and is based on a Reagan-era program to provide low-income Americans with subsidized telephone service. Sen. Coburn (R-OK) offered an amendment to “reform” or, more likely, eliminate, this otherwise obscure program that is important to low-income Americans.
  6. MITT ROMNEY’S TAX PLAN:  The Democratic plan raises close to $1 TRILLION in revenue just by closing loopholes that benefit the wealthy and corporate special interests like Big Oil. Republicans wanted to replace this with revenue-neutral tax reform that used the money to pay for huge new tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations instead of using it to reduce the deficit. This is almost identical to the Romney-Ryan tax plan that raised middle class taxes and which voters soundly rejected last year. All 45 GOP senators voted for this recycled Romney plan, which Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) also included in this year’s House GOP budget.
  7. KILL WIND JOBS, SEND CLEAN ENERGY INDUSTRY TO CHINA: Sen. Alexander (R-TN) wants to repeal the vital tax credits for wind power, just as Mitt Romney proposed last year. This would kill 37,000 jobs more or less immediately and effectively cede the clean energy industry to China and our other foreign competitors.
  8. LEAVE THE UN: Sen. Paul (R-KY) proposed one measure to save a very small amount of money: withdraw from the United Nations.
  9. RACE-BAITING WELFARE LIES: You may remember that Mitt Romney and other Republicans advanced the outright lie that President Obama “removed the work requirement from welfare.” This was categorically untrue, but that didn’t stop Republicans from airing millions of dollars in ads about it. In any case, the GOP campaign of distortion around the amendment has resulted in no states taking advantage of the flexibility requested by some Republican governors that the Obama administration offered to grant. Nevertheless, Sen. Inhofe (R-OK) is still so concerned that he offered an amendment to address the non-existent problem of the work requirement having been removed from welfare. For good measure, he offered a  second mean-spirited amendment that mandates drug testing for welfare recipients.
  10. CREATE A PERMANENT IMMIGRANT UNDERCLASS: Sen. Sessions (R-AR), who has faced charges of racial prejudice in the past and was once denied a seat on the federal bench as a result, put forward a proposal to bar even those immigrants who receive legal status from receiving numerous tax breaks directed at the working poor. This would even prevent immigrants from receiving tax breaks that they are claiming on behalf of their American citizen children.

These are just a few of the dozens of terrible proposals put forward today by Republican senators.

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Americans Like Equality


By  ThinkProgress War Room

Evening Brief: Important Stories That You Might’ve Missed

Leading conservative commentator says DOMA is unconstitutional.

GOP Congressman: “The best thing about the Earth is if you poke holes in it oil and gas come out.”

Starbucks CEO: If you don’t like marriage equality then feel free to sell your Starbucks stock.

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The FY2014 Murray Senate Budget: A Fairer Path Forward for Women and Families


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The FY 2014 budget introduced by Senate Budget Committee Chairman Patty Murray (D-WA) presents a clear alternative to the plan proposed by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI).  In stark contrast to the Ryan budget, which makes deep cuts to programs that women and families depend on while giving lavish tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans and corporations, the Murray budget proposes new investments in early childhood programs, largely protects core safety net programs, preserves the Affordable Care Act, and advances tax fairness. However, the Murray budget includes some cuts to funding for health care and other domestic programs that could be problematic for women.

Specifically, Chairman Murray’s budget:

The budget also invests in measures to speed up the economic recovery, including a $100 billion fund to support job training and infrastructure projects that would create new jobs and strengthen the economy.

  • Protects critical supports for vulnerable families and individuals.   Chairman Murray’s budget protects most core safety net programs, including the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP/Food Stamps), Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), and housing assistance for low-income families.  Women especially rely on these programs because they face a greater risk of poverty than men at all stages of their lives.
  • Fully implements the Affordable Care Act, ensuring that women will have greater access to affordable health insurance and preventive care services.
  • Improves tax credits for working families. The budget would make permanent improvements to the Child Tax Credit and Earned Income Tax Credit that help lift millions of women and children out of poverty each year.  These tax credit improvements were extended for only five years by the “fiscal cliff” deal at the end of 2012, unlike many of the Bush-era tax cuts that were made permanent.
  • Protects Social Security and promotes a secure retirement.  The Murray budget would make no cuts to Social Security benefits, which is particularly important for women who are the majority of adult beneficiaries and rely on Social Security benefits for a greater share of their income than men do.  The budget also provides incentives for companies to fully fund their pension plans and proposes other pension system reforms to help more Americans achieve a secure retirement.
  • Closes corporate tax loopholes and limits tax breaks for the wealthiest.  The Murray budget would make the tax code fairer and raise $975 billion in revenue from the individuals and corporations with the greatest ability to contribute.  For example, it calls for limiting tax breaks claimed by the top two percent of income earners, taxing private investment fund managers’ compensation at the same rates as regular earnings, and preventing corporations from taking advantage of offshore tax havens.     
  • Replaces arbitrary cuts from “sequestration” with a mix of revenue increases and other spending cuts.  Chairman Murray’s budget eliminates the automatic, across-the-board cuts (known as “sequestration” or “the sequester”) entirely – including restoration of FY 2013 funds.  These cuts, established by the Budget Control Act of 2011 (BCA), took effect March 1, 2013 and are projected to result in the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs and critical services for millions this year alone.  Under current law, sequestration will be in effect through FY 2021. The Murray budget replaces the entire sequester with a 50-50 mix of revenue increases and spending cuts.

The total spending cuts in Chairman Murray’s budget are about equal to the revenue increases – $975 billion. This total includes $382 billion cut from the discretionary side of the budget ($240 billion from defense, $142 billion from non-defense), $351 billion from the mandatory side (primarily from $275 billion in cuts to health programs), and $240 billion from interest savings.

This approach is far more fair than the Ryan budget, which not only refuses to ask millionaires and corporations to contribute a penny more toward deficit reduction but would give them huge new tax cuts.  Nevertheless, some of the cuts in the Murray budget could be problematic.  Specifically, the Murray budget:

  • Cuts $275 billion from federal health programs, including Medicare and Medicaid.  It will be very important to ensure that these cuts are implemented in a way that does not hurt beneficiaries.
  • Maintains and extends low caps on discretionary spending established by the Budget Control Act.  Over the next decade, these caps will bring federal spending on non-defense discretionary programs – like Head Start, child care, K-12 education, domestic violence prevention, and job training – to its lowest level in over 50 years.  The Murray budget keeps these caps in place through FY 2021 per the BCA, and caps discretionary spending in fiscal years 2022 and 2023 as well, cutting $142 billion from non-defense discretionary spending. These extremely low limits could compel reductions in services that women and their families depend on.