Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
The GOP Plan Is Designed To Keep Voters Happy Until After Elections
One provision of the Senate's health care bill stands to be quite popular: the Better Care Reconciliation Act would eliminate the Affordable Care Act's individual mandate. That would be repealed immediately. Another would likely please the Republican base: defunding Planned Parenthood for a year. Those funds would disappear right away, too. (Kurtzleben, 6/29)
U.S. Sen. Jeff Flake has not signaled how he would vote on the now-struggling Better Care Reconciliation Act, although he supports repealing former President Barack Obama's signature health-care law, which he and other Republicans dubbed "Obamacare." The political turmoil of the Trump presidency has the left fired up, which could make for unpredictable midterm elections 鈥 even in a usually Republican-friendly state such as Arizona. (Nowicki, 6/29)
The Republican health care bill would have a dramatic effect in California because of its steep cuts to Medicaid 鈥 particularly in the Central Valley... All of the state鈥檚 14 Republican members of Congress voted for the House鈥檚 version of the bill, in part due to pressure from House leaders and a desire to keep their promises on the campaign trail to repeal 鈥淥bamacare.鈥 (Tolan, 6/29)
Meanwhile, protesters are out in force against the bill聽鈥
It seems everyone at the various health-care protests in Washington this week brought a story. The Pennsylvania man who relied on the Affordable Care Act for his dialysis and was willing to get arrested so his senator understood the legislation was life and death. The D.C. woman who feared that her 27-year-old, nonverbal, autistic brother would be forced into an institution without Medicaid. And the Arlington father, Rick Hodges, who wondered if the Republican-proposed health-care bill would afford his teenage daughter with Down syndrome the opportunity to live a semi-independent life as an adult. (Stein, 6/29)
Ten protesters 鈥 most with disabilities 鈥 were arrested in U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner鈥檚 Denver office Thursday, two days after they began a sit-in to demand that the Republican senator pledge to oppose the GOP鈥檚 plan to repeal and replace Obamacare. 鈥淩ather go to jail than to die without Medicaid!鈥 protesters, some in wheelchairs or lying on the floor, chanted while Denver police stood in the doorway of Gardner鈥檚 downtown office and ordered them to leave. The demonstrators live-streamed their own arrests on Facebook while the chanting continued. Police also used video cameras to record the arrests. (Worthington, 6/29)