• Trump throws his weight behind new bipartisan deal restoring the 'gravy

    From Ubiquitous@21:1/5 to All on Tue Oct 17 21:05:01 2017
    XPost: alt.tv.pol-incorrect, alt.politics.usa, alt.fan.rush-limbaugh
    XPost: alt.politics.miserable-failure

    President Donald Trump outlined a pair of contradictory priorities
    for replacing the Affordable Care Act on Tuesday, suggesting that
    he's willing to let Congress undo a decision he has been boasting
    about since Thursday.

    The president bragged during a Rose Garden press conference with
    Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras that he had ended 'hundreds of
    millions of dollars a month' in Obamacare-related subsidies to
    medical insurance companies.

    Then he said he would support the passage of a bipartisan compromise
    in the U.S. Senate that would restore them.

    Shortly after the presidential press conference, Republican Sen.
    Lamar Alexander of Tennessee and Democratic Sen. Patty Murray of
    Washington announced that they have reached a deal doing just that.

    Hours later, Trump told an audience of conservatives that he
    commends the bipartisan effort but continues 'to believe that
    Congress must find a solution to the Obamacare mess instead of
    providing bailouts to insurance companies.'

    Taking a slap at the other party in the process, Trump said at the
    Heritage Foundation dinner, 'I'm pleased that Democrats have finally
    responded to my call for them to take responsibility for their
    Obamacare care disaster and work with Republicans to provide much
    needed relief to the American people.'

    He did not mention his own role in the fiasco over the subsides to
    the organization's donors.

    Of the subsidies, known as Cost Sharing Reduction payments, Trump
    said earlier on on Tuesday that some in Congress had urged him 'to
    continue to pay this,' but 'I said I'm not going to do it.'

    Trump tweeted Tuesday evening that premium spikes – which have been
    occurring but were expected to rise after he pulled subsidies for
    insurance companies who provide plans to low-income Americans – were
    the 'fault of the Democrats.'

    'Any increase in ObamaCare premiums is the fault of the Democrats
    for giving us a "product" that never had a chance of working,' he
    wrote.

    Ultimately, he said, he favors a long-term repeal-and-replace
    solution that sends block grants to the states instead of managing
    insurance markets from the Department of Health and Human Services.

    'Essentially that would be the plan,' the president said. 'Yes.
    Block grants.'

    He added that 'we really feel we have the votes' to secure passage
    of that long term arrangement.

    But getting from the status quo to his ideal, Trump claimed minutes
    later, could require the Alexander-Murray bill to 'get us over this intermediate hump.'

    The legislation would only be in effect for only two years, but
    would restore the payments that Trump ended just days ago. It would
    also states some added flexibility in which kinds of insurance
    policies are Obamacare-compliant.

    'It is a short term solution so that we don't have this very
    dangerous little period,' he said, 'including a dangerous period for
    insurance companies' – the same corporate titans that he blasted in
    the press conference's opening minutes.

    'If you look at insurance companies and take a good strong look at
    the numbers, you will see since the formation of Obamacare, they are
    up 400 per cent, 450 per cent, 250 per cent, 300 per cent. They've
    made a fortune,' he said

    'Obamacare is everything but dead. The people aren't gonna take it,'
    he added.

    And the Alexander-Murray bill would 'not only save money but give
    people much better health care with a very, very much smaller
    premium spike.'

    In signaling support, Trump said his administration had been
    involved in talks as it was hammered out. Alexander presented the
    proposal to colleagues at a Republican conference meeting in the
    Capitol on Tuesday.

    Even if Trump were to formally back the final product, it would have
    to make it through hurdles in Congress.

    It would be subject to a filibuster in a Senate chamber where many
    Republicans are strongly opposed to Obamacare and have tried and
    failed repeatedly to repeal it – something Trump also supports.

    In the House, a deal that appeared to be saving Obamacare could draw
    strong conservative opposition, in a chamber where more than 60
    Republicans voted against a recent hurricane relief bill.

    The insurance industry, a major player in the Capitol, can be
    expected to back it.

    'We think it's a good solution and it got broad support when Patty
    and I talked about it at the Democratic caucus meeting Tuesday,'
    Democratic Senate Minority Leader Sen. Charles Schumer said at the
    Capitol.

    He explained that it represented 'growing consensus that in the
    short term we need stability in the markets. ... The president has
    been sabotaging this bill and the agreement would undo much of that
    sabotage.'

    Sen. Murray, too, said Trump has taken steps 'to sabotage health
    care in our country,' and suggested that ending the CSR payments
    would force consumers, not insurers, 'to pay the price.'

    This morning Trump pronounced the Obamacare system 'virtually dead,'
    'a disgrace to our nation' and on its 'last legs.'

    'We are solving the problem,' he added.

    He had boasted Monday of ending the payments, saying during a
    cabinet meeting that 'I cut off the gravy train.'

    Trump told members of Heritage's president's club Tuesday evening
    that he would eventually get rid of the 'disaster known as
    Obamacare' altogether.

    Claiming once more that he expected Republican lawmakers to send a
    repeal and replace bill to his desk on Jan. 20, his first day in
    office, Trump said it was 'not as easy as we thought.'

    'But we're gonna get it done, you watch,' he asserted.


    --
    Dems & the media want Trump to be more like Obama, but then he'd
    have to audit liberals & wire tap reporters' phones.

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