‘Repeal and replace’ fails; Obamacare needs fixing

    The failure of the Republican-led effort to repeal and replace Obamacare represents a big victory for all kinds of citizens and interest groups that analyzed the proposed legislation and said, “No dice.”
    The day before House Speaker Paul Ryan decided not to take a vote on the American Health Care Act, a Quinnipiac Poll found that only 17 percent of American voters approved of the GOP’s legislation, while 56 percent did not.
    You can hardly call that a vote of support for what the bill was trying to do. Too many people would be hurt, and the public, along with editorial writers in newspapers across the country, got that message: The GOP plan would cause real pain. Members of Congress heard it loud and clear, and many responded to what they heard.
    Older Americans would have had to pay more, sometimes thousands of dollars more to get health insurance. In 32 states, millions of Americans with incomes slightly above the poverty line who had gained coverage under their state’s Medicaid expansion program would have lost their coverage.
    Others already on Medicaid or joining in the future would also have been affected. The proposal called for cutting back the federal government’s commitment to fund health care for the poor by changing the way it would pay for its share of program. That would have left the states, which jointly fund Medicaid, strapped for funds to cover everyone needing medical treatment as well as middle class families who required help paying for long-term care. Medicaid pays for about half of all nursing home stays.

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