NATION/WORLD
Friday, June 23, 2017
East Oregonian
Page 9A
Senate GOP unveils Obamacare overhaul, but not all aboard
Hermiston insurer
says changes to
coverage unclear
Associated Press
and East Oregonian
WASHINGTON
—
Senate Republicans launched
their plan for shriveling
Barack Obama’s health
care law Thursday, edging a
step closer to their dream of
repeal with a bill that would
slice and reshape Medicaid
for the poor, relax rules on
insurers and end tax increases
on higher earners that have
helped finance expanded
coverage for millions.
Four conservative GOP
senators quickly announced
initial opposition to the
measure and others were
evasive, raising the specter
of a jarring rejection by the
Republican-controlled body.
But Senate Majority Leader
Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.,
indicated he was open to
discussion and seemed deter-
mined to muscle the measure
through his chamber next
week.
Release of the 142-page
proposal ended the long
wait for one of the most
closely guarded bills in
years. McConnell stitched
it together behind closed
doors, potentially moving
President Donald Trump and
the GOP toward achieving
perhaps their fondest goal —
repealing former President
Obama’s 2010 statute.
On Twitter, Trump said
he was “very supportive”
of the bill. On Facebook,
Obama said at the heart of
the bill was “fundamental
meanness.”
The bill would end
Obama’s tax penalties on
people who don’t buy insur-
ance — effectively ending the
so-called individual mandate
— and on larger companies
that don’t offer coverage to
their workers. It would offer
less generous subsidies for
people than Obama’s law
but provide billions to states
and insurance companies to
buttress markets that in some
areas have been abandoned
by insurers.
In Hermiston, a few
people got together Thursday
afternoon to learn more about
Medicare through a seminar
with employees from Herm-
iston’s Simmons Insurance
Group.
Attendees had questions
about their own eligibility
for the federal program, but
didn’t bring up the newly-re-
vealed Senate bill.
“The Affordable Care Act
didn’t have a tremendous
impact on Medicare,” said
Simmons’ Josh Goller. “We
expect the impact (of the
new bill) on Medicare will be
fairly minimum.”
He said his agency saw
AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.,
joined by, from left, Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., Sen.
John Thune, R-S.D., and Majority Whip John Cornyn,
R-Texas, speaks following a closed-door strategy
session, at the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday.
a slight uptick in questions
and concerns about coverage
when the House bill came
out, and during the election,
but said it’s difficult to tell
now how much locals will be
impacted.
“It will take some time to
go through the process,” he
said. “The other piece to look
at will be, how will the state
respond? Oregon was an
early adopter of the Afford-
able Care Act provisions,
and tried to be on the edge
with Cover Oregon. It didn’t
necessarily work out the way
people had hoped, but the
general feeling is that the
state is likely going to try and
preserve something similar
to what we already have.”
McConnell must navigate
a narrow route in which
defections by just three of
the 52 Republican senators
would doom the legislation.
He and others said the
measure would make health
insurance more affordable
and
eliminate
Obama
coverage requirements that
some people find onerous.
“We have to act,”
McConnell said. “Because
Obamacare is a direct attack
on the middle class, and
American families deserve
better than its failing status
quo.”
Democrats
said
the
measure would result in
skimpier policies and higher
out-of-pocket costs for many
and erode gains made under
Obama that saw roughly 20
million additional Americans
gain coverage.
“We live in the wealthiest
country on earth. Surely
we can do better than what
the Republican health care
bill promises,” said Senate
Minority Leader Chuck
Schumer, D-N.Y.
Four conservative sena-
tors expressed opposition
but openness to talks: Ted
Cruz of Texas, Kentucky’s
Rand Paul, Mike Lee of
Utah and Ron Johnson from
Wisconsin. They said the
measure falls short, missing
“the most important promise
that we made to Americans:
to repeal Obamacare and
BRIEFLY
U.S. officials to lift
Yellowstone grizzly
bear protections
HELENA, Mont.
(AP) — Protections that
have been in place for more
than 40 years for grizzly
bears in the Yellowstone
National Park area will be
lifted this summer after U.S.
government officials ruled
Thursday that the population
is no longer threatened.
Grizzlies in all
continental U.S. states
except Alaska have
been protected under the
Endangered Species Act
since 1975, when just 136
bears roamed in and around
Yellowstone. There are now
an estimated 700 grizzlies
in the area that includes
northwestern Wyoming,
southwestern Montana
and eastern Idaho, leading
the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service to conclude that the
population has recovered.
“This achievement stands
as one of America’s great
conservation successes,”
Interior Secretary Ryan
Zinke said in a statement.
Grizzly bears once
numbered about 50,000 and
ranged over much of North
America. Their population
plummeted starting in the
1850s because of widespread
hunting and trapping, and
the bears now occupy only
2 percent of their original
territory.
The final ruling by the
Fish and Wildlife Service
to remove Yellowstone
grizzlies from the list of
endangered and threatened
species will give jurisdiction
over the bears to Montana,
Idaho and Wyoming by July.
No tapes after all:
Trump says he
didn’t record
Comey talks
WASHINGTON
(AP) — President Donald
Trump declared Thursday
he never made and doesn’t
have recordings of his
private conversations with
ousted former FBI Director
James Comey, ending a
month-long guessing game
that he started with a cryptic
tweet and that ensnared his
administration in yet more
controversy.
“With all of the recently
reported electronic
surveillance, intercepts,
unmasking and illegal
leaking of information,”
Trump said in his latest
tweets, he has “no idea”
whether there are “tapes”
or recordings of the two
men’s conversations. But
he proclaimed he “did not
make, and do not have, any
such recordings.”
That left open the
possibility that recordings
were made without his
knowledge or by someone
else. But he largely appeared
to close the saga that began
after said Comey“better
hope that there are no ‘tapes’
of our conversations.”
lower their health care costs.”
On the other hand, Sens.
Dean Heller of Nevada,
facing a competitive 2018
re-election battle, Ohio’s Rob
Portman and Shelley Moore
Capito of West Virginia
expressed concerns about
the bill’s cuts to Medicaid
and drug addiction efforts.
And Susan Collins of
Maine reiterated her oppo-
sition to language blocking
federal money for Planned
Parenthood, which many
Republicans oppose because
it provides abortions.
Late Thursday, Trump
tweeted, “I am very
supportive of the Senate
#HealthcareBill.
Look
forward to making it
really special! Remember,
ObamaCare is dead.”
Obama was more than
skeptical.
“If there’s a chance you
might get sick, get old or
start a family, this bill will
do you harm,” he wrote. He
said “small tweaks” during
the upcoming debate “cannot
change the fundamental
meanness at the core of this
legislation.”
The House approved its
version of the bill last month.
Though Trump lauded its
passage in a Rose Garden
ceremony, he called the House
measure “mean” last week.
The nonpartisan Congres-
sional Budget Office said
under the House bill, 23
million fewer people would
have coverage by 2026. The
budget office analysis of the
Senate measure is expected
early next week.
The Senate legislation
drew support from the U.S.
Chamber of Commerce,
which said it would “stabi-
lize crumbling insurance
markets” and curb premium
increases. The American
Medical Association, the
American Hospital Associa-
tion and AARP, representing
older people, all criticized the
measure.
The Senate bill would
phase out extra money
Obama’s law provides to 31
states that agreed to expand
coverage under the feder-
al-state Medicaid program.
Those additional funds
would continue through
2020, then gradually fall and
disappear entirely in 2024.
Ending Obama’s expan-
sion has caused major
rifts among GOP senators.
Some from states that have
expanded have battled to
delay the phase-out, while
conservative
Republicans
have sought to halt the funds
quickly.
Beginning in 2020, the
Senate measure would also
limit the federal funds states
get each year for Medicaid.
The program currently gives
states all the money needed
to cover eligible recipients
and procedures.
The Senate bill largely
uses people’s incomes as the
yardstick for helping those
without workplace coverage
to buy private insurance. That
would focus the aid more on
people with lower incomes
than the House legislation,
which bases its subsidies on
age.
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