Republicans are spinning their health care bills’ impact on Medicaid. Sen. Pat Toomey made the questionable claim that under the Senate bill “no one loses coverage” gained under the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion. White House Counselor Kellyanne Conway claimed there “are not cuts to Medicaid” in the bills that reduce future Medicaid spending by hundreds of billions.
The Congressional Budget Office projects that the Senate health care bill would increase the number of uninsured Americans by 22 million in 2026 — a figure that both sides in the debate are distorting.
Sen. Rand Paul, who opposes the Senate health care bill, says subsidies “are actually greater under the Republican bill than they are under the current Obamacare law.” But the CBO says the average subsidy under the bill would be “significantly lower than the average subsidy under current law.”
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi cites research from two partisan groups to claim that the Republican health care bill would result in the loss of 1.8 million jobs by 2022. But a recent independent study put the expected job loss at 413,000 by that year.
Vice President Mike Pence went too far in claiming that a new report showed that “the average premium across this country has actually doubled under Obamacare.”
Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price and House Speaker Paul Ryan engaged in partisan spin in talking about the Republican health care bill that was passed by the House last week.
Q: Does the new GOP health care bill apply to members of Congress and their families?
A: For procedural reasons, the bill passed by House Republicans exempted lawmakers from some of its effects. But a stand-alone bill passed unanimously would do away with that exemption if the legislation becomes law.
Democrats and Republicans have made competing claims on whether the latest version of the GOP health care bill maintains protections for people with preexisting medical conditions. We’ll go through what the legislation now proposes on this issue.
Donald Trump, the candidate we dubbed the ‘King of Whoppers’ in 2015, has held true to form as president.
It’s a common criticism of the Medicaid program — that the doctor participation rate is lower than the rate for Medicare or private insurance. The implication is that Medicaid patients cannot access care, and it has gotten worse under the ACA. But experts say that’s misleading.