Pelosi's Plan to Bolster Obamacare — and Dems’ Election Chances

By Yuval Rosenberg

Pelosi Unveils Bill to Bolster Obamacare — and Dems’ Election
Hopes

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other Democratic leaders unveiled

legislation Wednesday aimed at making Affordable
Care Act insurance plans cheaper to buy and encouraging states to
expand their Medicaid programs.

“The legislation (H.R. 1425) is largely a repeat of bills the
Democratic-controlled House already passed, mostly largely along
party lines,” Bloomberg Law’s Alex Ruoff
writes.

The package, called the Patient Protection and Affordable Care
Enhancement Act, would expand tax credits for plans sold through
the Obamacare exchanges and allow more middle-income families to
qualify for subsidies. It would cap enrollee premium costs for
“silver” plans at 8.5% of income, instead of nearly 10% under the
current law. It also seeks to entice the 14 states that have not
expanded Medicaid to reconsider by having the federal government
cover 100% of the costs for the first three years, mirroring the
original expansion plan.

The bill would also allow the government to negotiate the price
of some prescription drugs, a measure that would offset costs of
expanding coverage.

The legislation would reduce the number of uninsured by 4
million Americans, House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman
Frank Pallone (D-NJ) told reporters, citing Congressional Budget
Office
estimates. CBO also found that the package would
reduce deficits over 10 years by $15 billion.

The House will vote on the bill on Monday, Pelosi said.

Election-year messaging: The bill stands no chance of
passing the Republican-controlled Senate, but gives Democrats
another way to signal to election-year voters that they are
prioritizing health care — and to draw a contrast with the Trump
administration’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic and GOP
efforts to undermine Obamacare.

“We have become the party of health care — this is increasingly
our brand, this is what we have fought for,” Rep. Cheri Bustos
(D-IL), chairwoman of the House Democrats’ campaign arm, told

The New York Times earlier this week. “They are
becoming the party of drinking bleach.”

At the same time, as Politico’s Susannah Luthi and Alica Miranda
Ollstein
note, the latest plan “is less ambitious than the
platform put forward by Joe Biden and doesn't include a public
insurance option that could compete with private plans. It also
would not expand eligibility for Medicare or Medicaid.” House
Democrats, they report, privately acknowledge that the bill was
largely crafted with campaign messaging in mind.

Trump has sought to lower health care and prescription drug
costs through a series of executive actions, many focused on
encouraging competition by increasing price transparency. But many
of Trump’s efforts to lower costs have met with legal or other
setbacks, and the administration has yet to release a comprehensive
plan to replace Obamacare.

The White House is expected to present legal briefs on Thursday
asking the Supreme Court to invalidate the 2010 health care
law.

“Tomorrow the Supreme Court will hear the brief from the
Trump administration as to taking down the Affordable Care Act,
right in the heart of the time of the pandemic,” Pelosi said. “It
was wrong any time. Now it’s beyond stupid, beyond
stupid.”

Trump Scores a Court Win on Hospital, Insurer Price
Disclosures

The Trump administration won a federal court ruling Tuesday
upholding its plan to require hospitals to disclose the secret
rates they negotiate with health insurers.

Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar
called the decision “a resounding victory for
President Trump and HHS’s agenda to lower Americans’ healthcare
costs.” The president celebrated the decision in a Tuesday night

tweet: “BIG VICTORY for patients – Federal court UPHOLDS
hospital price transparency. Patients deserve to know the price of
care BEFORE they enter the hospital. Because of my action, they
will. This may very well be bigger than healthcare itself.
Congratulations America! ‘’

The American Hospital Association, a hospital trade group, had
sought to block implementation of the Trump administration’s rule,
arguing that it violated the First Amendment and goes beyond the
intent of the Affordable Care Act. Insurers also oppose the
plan.

“The proposal does nothing to help patients understand their
out-of-pocket costs. It also imposes significant burdens on
hospitals at a time when resources are stretched thin and need to
be devoted to patient care,” Melinda Hatton, the AHA’s general
counsel, said in a statement after the ruling. “Hospitals and
health systems have consistently supported efforts to provide
patients with information about the costs of their medical care.
This is not the right way to achieve this important goal.”

Hatton said the AHA plans to appeal the court’s decision
and seek an expedited review. The administration’s rule is
scheduled to take effect in January.

Trump Admin Cutting Funding for 13 Coronavirus Test Sites

The Trump administration plans to cut funding for 13 Covid-19
testing sites in five states, including seven sites in hard-hit
Texas, according to
multiple
reports this week. The other sites facing a loss
of federal funding are in Colorado, Illinois, New Jersey and
Pennsylvania.

The testing sites were set up during the initial response to the
coronavirus pandemic, but federal officials have decided not to
extend funding for them beyond June 30.

Responsibility for operating the sites will be transferred to
the states.

The Trump administration has downplayed the withdrawal of
funding, with testing czar Adm. Brett Giroir telling reporters that
it is “providing federal support in a different way,” including
hundreds of other federally funded testing sites.

Even so, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), whose home state is experiencing
what Texas Gov. Greg Abbott called a “massive outbreak” of the
disease, is pushing back on the decision. A Cruz spokesperson told
NBC News that the senator “has urged and will continue to urge
[health officials] to extend the community testing sites in
Texas.”

The decision to withdraw funding comes as President Trump has
claimed that he told officials to slow down testing in order to
reduce the number of detected cases. Lawmakers have criticized the
president’s comments, including some Republican senators. “No, no,
no. We need tests and we need … millions of them, tens of millions
of them, especially when we start opening up this fall,” Sen. John
Thune (R-SD)
said when asked if the country could reduce
testing after President Trump argued that slowing down testing
would result in fewer cases.

Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) on Wednesday charged that the
funding withdrawal is driven by Trump’s desire to reduce the case
count.

“The pandemic is clearly getting worse in states
nationwide — and instead of trying harder to stop it, President
Trump is apparently trying harder to hide it,” Murray said in a
statement. “It’s completely unacceptable that while billions in
federal dollars Congress passed to support testing sit unspent,
this Administration is closing testing sites in states where new
COVID-19 cases are rapidly on the rise. The President should
reverse this clearly counterproductive step
immediately.”

Cities Plan to Slash Spending as Coronavirus Devastates Local
Budgets

Hundreds of cities, towns and villages in the U.S. plan to
reduce spending significantly as they respond to budget shortfalls
resulting from the coronavirus crisis, and many are already cutting
back, according to a new report from the National League of
Cities.

In a survey of 1,100 municipalities, the group found that more
than 700 plan to delay or cancel road repair projects, critical
infrastructure upgrades, and the purchase of new equipment. About
800 cities said they are cutting spending on services, including
police, fire, sanitation and recreation. And about a third said
they expect to furlough or lay off workers.

The NLC estimates that local budgets will see a shortfall of
$134 billion in 2020, and $360 billion between 2020 and 2022. The
reduced spending will have a powerful negative effect on small
businesses and the quality of life, NLC said, especially in smaller
municipalities.

A call for additional federal assistance:
The CARES Act in March created a $150 billion fund intended
to assist states, territories, tribal areas and local governments.
But many smaller cities were excluded from benefiting directly from
the fund and so far only 36 municipalities, all with populations
over 500,000, have received aid, worth a total of $7.9
billion.

The NLC called for new legislation that would allow
smaller cities to receive aid directly, and for the Treasury to
start specifically targeting smaller municipalities. “Without
direct appropriations to cities, we fear that funds for these
municipalities will never reach their intended targets,” the group
said.

Poll of the Day: Americans Think Government Should
Do More on Climate Change

About two-thirds (65%) of Americans say the federal
government isn’t doing enough to reduce the effects of climate
change, according to a survey by the
Pew Research Center. Among the policies with broad
bipartisan support: planting a trillion trees around the world to
absorb carbon dioxide emissions, tax credits for businesses that
capture carbon emissions and stricter fuel efficiency standards for
vehicles.

Quote of the Day

“Inheritances compound over generations, one reason societies
often choose to tax them as a way to combat rising inequality and
level the playing field. Our tax system has always been one of our
most potent tools for expressing and acting upon our values. But in
this area, it is failing and only getting worse.”

– Lily Batchelder, a professor
at New York University School of Law, in an
op-ed in The New York Times Wednesday. Batchelder
says an inheritance tax would raise roughly $790 billion over the
next decade, while restraining the growing power of an economic
hereditary elite.

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