House Dems to hold hearing on reform law's protections

GOP advancing health care repeal without its friends
GOP ADVANCING Health Care Repeal WITHOUT ITS FRIENDS.... After a week-long break, House Republicans will get back to work today, renewing their admittedly-pointless effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act. The vote, which will likely come tomorrow, isn't hard to predict -- the House will easily approve the repeal measure -- but even supporters know the bill will promptly fade into oblivion soon after. What's more interesting is how little Republicans' ostensible allies are doing to give them ...

Wonkbook: Health-care debate, round two
Health-care reform isn't getting repealed this week. It's getting re-debated. The GOP's control of the House -- and thus of at least some of the agenda -- gives them a second opportunity to make their case against the bill. It also, however, puts the Republicans in a position Democrats will recognize immediately: They're behind a specific piece of health-care Legislation with sweeping implications, some of which are popular, and many of which are not. In the coming days, Americans will hear a lo...

Independent analysis debunks false GOP claims about health reform
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a group with a reputation for producing materials that are balanced, authoritative, and accessible to non-specialists, has released a study of the claims central to the debate on repealing health reform that will reopen in the House this week. The short answer is that the CBO analysis is deemed accurate while Republican claims to the contrary are deemed inaccurate. At issue is the pending bill to Repeal "job killing" Health Care reform, a bill who's ve...

HHS: 1/2 Have Preexisting Conditions
From a water-carrying Washington Post: With House set to debate healthcare, government finds up to half of Americans under 65 have preexisting conditions By Amy Goldstein Tuesday, January 18, 2011 As many as 129 million Americans under age 65 have medical problems that are red flags for Health Insurers , according to an analysis that marks the government’s first attempt to quantify the number of people at risk of being rejected by Insurance Companies or paying more for coverage. The sec...

Boehner: 'Job Killing' Health Care Bill Now 'Job Crushing,' 'Job Destroying'
WASHINGTON -- Republicans pushing to Repeal President Barack Obama's Health Care overhaul warn that 650,000 jobs will be lost if the law is allowed to stand. But the widely cited estimate by House GOP leaders is shaky. It's the latest creative use of statistics in the Health Care debate, which has seen plenty of examples from both sides. Republicans originally called their thumbs-down Legislation the "Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act." Postponed after the Mass Shootings in Tucson,...

up to half of Americans under 65 have preexisting conditions
As many as 129 million Americans under age 65 have medical problems that are red flags for Health Insurers, according to an analysis that marks the government's first attempt to quantify the number of people at risk of being rejected by Insurance Companies or paying more for coverage. The report is part of the Obama Administration's attempt to manage the debate on Health Care reform. And the response from the other side is predictable: Republicans immediately disparaged the analysis as "public...

The trouble for Boehner is...
... The American public has changed its mind about "Obamacare."  Plenty of Bloggers picked up on this even before the midterms.  Now it's official. As House Republicans plan to Repeal the Healthcare Reform law this week, strong opposition to the law fell to the Lowest Levels in more than a year, according to a new poll. Thirty percent strongly oppose the reform law, the lowest percentage since September 2009, when Congress was still crafting the Legislation. ...The Hi...

Repeal vs. reform
Today, the House of Representatives will begin debate on Legislation repealing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. That makes for a bracingly clarifying choice. America will either have a package of reforms that we've studied quite thoroughly or a status quo we know all too well. So what would a world without the health-care bill look like? 1. In 2019, there will be 32 million Americans who don't have Health Insurance, but would have had it under reform: There are a lot of questions ...

House GOP targeting key health reform component, the medical loss ratio
The House GOP knows that while they have enough members to vote to Repeal the Affordable Care Act this week, the effort dies in the Senate. Even if it could get through the Senate, it would be vetoed by President Obama. So they're working on individual pieces to chip away at the provisions of the bill, including a critical one that went into effect January 1: requiring that insurers spend at least 80 percent of the premium dollars they take in on actual health services, rather than overhead or ...

White House Steps Up Defense Of Health Care Reform
With the GOP-controlled House of Representatives set to vote to Repeal Health Care reform this week, the Obama Administration is intensifying a public campaign to reframe the fight over the law: making it one in which Republicans are villains, trying to rescind benefits the Affordable Care Act provides people. One of those benefits is a ban on Discrimination against people with pre-existing health conditions. A report from the Department of Health and Human Services, published today, concludes...

How to Repeal Obamacare in the Senate
This week the House will pass a bill to Repeal Obamacare. Congressional experts will argue that the Senate won’t pass a full repeal. They are correct to argue that full Repeal will not be passed by both the House and Senate in the next few months, but they may be wrong that a full Repeal bill will not pass in this Congress within the next two years. If Senators don’t take two procedural steps this week, they will make it virtually impossible to ever get a vote on the House-passed full repe...

GOP set to try for healthcare law repeal
WASHINGTON, Jan. 18 (UPI) -- Republican leaders in the U.S. House are set to open debate on whether to Repeal Healthcare Reform Legislation enacted by Democrats in the previous session. The debate, set to begin Tuesday, comes as public-opinion polls indicate less than a third of Americans support repealing the law. A Repeal vote is expected Wednesday, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., told The Christian Science Monitor. The debate was originally scheduled for last week and was anticipate...

A whole lot of preexisting conditions
A WHOLE LOT OF PREEXISTING CONDITIONS.... It was one of the most common phrases in the Health Care debate: "preexisting conditions." Before Democrats' Health Care reform plan became law, Insurance Companies routinely turned away customers for coverage based on ailments they had in the past. This Discrimination left individuals and families with no Insurance through no fault of their own. The Affordable Care Act banned this discrimination, and it's one of the law's most popular measures. Congre...

Study: 129 million have preexisting conditions
Source: Washington Post Study: 129 million have preexisting conditions By Amy Goldstein Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, January 18, 2011 As many as 129 million Americans under age 65 have medical problems that are red flags for Health Insurers, according to an analysis that marks the government's first attempt to quantify the number of people at risk of being rejected by Insurance Companies or paying more for coverage. The secretary of health and human services is scheduled to release the ...

"House Republicans plan to vote tomorrow to repeal last years health care overhaul."
"One of the key defenses of the law is that it will reduce the Deficit over the next decade and the decades to come. But the projections employed to make this argument just aren’t believable. Democrats gamed the Congressional Budget Office’s scoring process, producing a score that distorted the long-term numbers and was believable only under a set of fantastic and improbable assumptions." ...

Boehner's new word choice
Washington (CNN) - As evidence of a slight rhetorical shift, House Speaker John Boehner abandoned labeling the current Health Care law as "job killing," and instead called it "job crushing" and "job destroying" in a new message posted on his webpage. "Repealing the job crushing Health Care law is critical to boosting Small Business Job Creation and growing The Economy," Boehner wrote in the post. Boehner also said "job destroying" in his closing remarks at the GOP retreat Saturday. After suspend...

House Debate Begins on Repeal of 'Obamacare'
The U.S. House of Representatives will begin the planned debate on Tuesday to Repeal the new Health Care law. The start of the process fulfills a campaign promise by congressional Republicans who said they received a mandate from the voters to do away with the Controversial measure. "We have to pull Obamacare out by The Roots," Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa. GOP lawmakers have insisted the law will do little to control skyrocketing medical costs and will hamper Economic Growth. "We can send a sign...

Don't Forget 'Replace'
I am one of roughly 200 Economists and other experts to sign an Open Letter expressing concern over the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) and arguing that the economic and budgetary outlook would be improved by Repeal. Proponents of the PPACA are stridently making the case that repeal means that Children and others with preexisting conditions will never get Insurance policies, that seniors will pay too much for their drugs, and that Insurance Companies will run roughshod over th...

The Real Showdown
Ezra Klein's healthcare preview: In the end, Repeal will pass the House -- likely tomorrow -- and quickly die in the Senate. Then comes the more interesting phase of the fight over health-care reform: The GOP's effort at revision. Republicans, who already know that Repeal will fail, are preparing to begin the longer and more complex campaign to replace, rewrite, or simply undermine various parts of the bill. The relevant committees in the House will try to develop alternatives, w...

Obamacare Repeal Will Kill People, Shrieks House Dem
GRETA VAN SUSTEREN, HOST: Our next guest is a Democratic congressman who says repealing the Health Care law would lead to more Americans dying. Apparently, this is why the two parties have a hard time agreeing. Congressman John Garamendi joins us live. You and the other congressman are quite far apart on this. REP. JOHN GARAMENDI, D-CALIF.: Yes, we are. VAN SUSTEREN: Indeed, you are. All right, why do you say repealing it would cause more Americans to die? GARAMENDI: Well, we know that over the ...

Bogus number of the day
Obamacare always was an answer in search of a question — 80% of Americans are satisfied with their Health Insurance — so Democrats have scrambled time after time to rationalize this irrational approach to health care. Now that Republicans plan to vote on repealing this Unconstitutional law, Democrats are throwing up make-believe numbers to scare people. From the Washington Post: “As many as 129 million Americans under age 65 have medical problems that are red flags for health...

Healthcare Law a Jobs Killer?
TM NOTE: Texan4Hillary offers his perspective as a movement progressive Activist, weeknights 6 pm EST. Sorry Mr. Speaker, no. The healthcare law is very flawed. The mandate making Americans buy from a cartel is abhorrent. But it does have some redeeming qualities bundled in it and the Right Wing lies on the law must be debunked. The Right’s effort to Repeal the entire thing is outlandish, especially since the mandate is based on the GOP’s own plan for healthcare coverage back in the...

Report: Half of Americans have preexisting conditions
The government's newfound civility is about to face its first big test. As Republicans prepare to start re-debating Health Care reform , a federal survey out today will give them something to talk about: the number of Americans excluded from private coverage because of preexisting conditions. According to the report, up to 129 million people --or half of Americans under 65-- are ineligible for Health Insurance because they suffer from illnesses that "major insurers consider a basis to charge cus...

On the Radar: Health care debate, Giffords' condition, Chinese leader's visit
House to debate Health Care Repeal - Floor debate over whether to quash health care reform kicks off Tuesday in the House of Representatives. Lawmakers are expected to vote this week. The measure likely will pass the Republican-led House but is believed to have little chance of clearing the Democratic-controlled Senate or surviving a presidential Veto. Republicans acknowledge it's an uphill battle to achieve an outright repeal, but they suggest they'll attempt to defund...

Have Republicans read the health care bill they are about to repeal?
During the Health Care reform debate of 2009-2010 opponents of the Health Care Reform Bill frequently asked "Have you read the bill?"  The question was aimed at attacking the complexity of the Health Care reform bill, which ended up being over 2,300 pages long.  Lost in the debate was the fact that legislators nearly always rely on their aides to inform them of the provisions of every bill.  In addition, the bill was so long in large part because it quoted old laws that it was cha...