Tuesday, January 10, 2017
A curiously muted response
If you were part of an industry that stood to lose millions of customers and Billions of dollars in revenue at the hands of a bunch of anarchic yahoos, what would you do? You would probably want to be a little more energetic in your response than the health insurance industry int the face of ACA repeal.
The speed of Republican efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act has stunned health industry lobbyists, leaving representatives of insurance companies, hospitals, doctors and pharmaceutical makers in disarray and struggling for a response to a legislative quick strike that would upend much of the American health care system.Others in the health care industry lobbyists are marshaling their resources, but the insurance lobbyists seem to be setting their sights on shaping the currently chimerical replacement for ACA, no doubt to insure maximum profit with minimum service delivery. At this point the only ones not worried are the insane right wing yahoos who hate anything that may help people and those who don't care if Obamacare is repealed, they have their ACA coverage.
The Senate is expected to take the first step by Thursday morning, approving parliamentary language in a budget resolution that would fast-track a repeal bill that could not be filibustered in the Senate. House and Senate committees would have until Jan. 27 to report out repeal legislation. Health insurance and health care for millions of Americans are at risk.
But far from reflecting the magnitude of the moment, the most prominent message from lobbyists that lawmakers saw in their first week back at work was a narrowly focused advertisement from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce demanding the repeal of “Obamacare taxes,” especially an annual fee imposed on health insurance companies to help pay for the expansion of coverage under the health law.
“More than 20 million people could lose their health insurance, and states could lose billions of dollars in Medicaid money,” said Kenneth E. Raske, the president of the Greater New York Hospital Association. But, he added, many health care executives “don’t want to get on the wrong side of the new administration or the Republican majority in Congress.”
Health care professionals are not totally silent, but industries that were integral to the creation of the Affordable Care Act in 2010 are keeping their voices down as Republicans rush to dismantle it. Some Republican lawmakers are openly fretting about their leaders’ repeal strategy, saying they must develop an Affordable Care Act replacement before they repeal it. Five Republican senators proposed on Monday to extend the deadline for drafting repeal legislation by five weeks, until March 3. One of the five, Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee, said the extra time would allow Congress and the Trump administration to “get the policy right” as they try to arrange a smooth transition to a new system of health coverage.
But the naysayers are getting no cover from a major lobbying and advertisement blitz like the ones that blanketed the airwaves in 2009 and 2010.
To block the repeal effort, said Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Senate Democrat, “we need two or three Republicans to join us.”
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