Santorum supports Grahamcare, claims 'we ended welfare'

[William Tell]

What on earth is he talking about? :confused:


Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum told Breitbart News that Americans will have a choice next week between local health through the Graham-Cassidy Obamacare repeal bill or the single-payer health care scheme proposed by Bernie Sanders.

Rick Santorum first revealed in an exclusive interview with Breitbart News about his Republican coalition’s plan to repeal and replace Obamacare through block grants in August. Since then, President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence endorsed the bill and continued to call governors and senators to support the bill. Fifteen Republican governors wrote to in a letter to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell urging him to pass the bill through the upper chamber. Speaker Paul Ryan and House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy support the proposal. House Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows endorsed the bill and said that the bill has “real merit.”

Now, Sen. Lindsey Graham reported that they almost have the votes for the Obamacare repeal bill to pass through the Senate.

Santorum explained why this idea has continued to gain momentum in Congress and amongst many Republican governors. Santorum said, “It’s a good idea. If this wasn’t a good idea then it would not get support from either moderates or conservatives. This is an idea that 20 years ago got 74 votes in the United States Senate for block granting a federal entitlement to the states and providing them with the resources and flexibility to do the job. This is an idea that works and creates better outcomes and far better than an open-ended entitlement.”

Sen. Santorum fired back at conservatives that do not want to support Graham-Cassidy for not repealing enough of Obamacare. Santorum charged:

I lay it out, it’s very simple. The idea that you have to repeal every part of Obamacare well that’s ridiculous. We ended welfare as we know it and we didn’t tear out every part of welfare. It’s just silly to repeal every of aspect of Obamacare. http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/09/20/exclusive-rick-santorum-graham-cassidy-choice-local-health-care-berniecare/

[r3volution 3.0]

He means it's silly to do a real reform when you can fool the public into thinking a whitewash is a real reform.

They did it before, they can do it again.

MAGA!

[Zippyjuan]

Keeps all the Obamacare taxes. Gets rid of government subsidies and Medicaid. Replace them with block grants to states.

http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-obamacare-101-graham-cassidy-20170919-story.html


Graham-Cassidy would eliminate insurance subsidies provided through the Affordable Care Act to about 8 million consumers who earn too much to qualify for the Medicaid program.

And it would eliminate the half-century-old system of federal Medicaid funding, which currently provides money to states to cover poor children, mothers, senior citizens and the disabled.

State Medicaid programs today insure more than 70 million Americans. That includes millions who have gained coverage since 2014 through the Affordable Care Act, which provided additional federal funds to states to make Medicaid available to poor, working-age adults, a population traditionally not eligible for coverage.

In place of the current law’s insurance subsidies and the Medicaid funding, Graham-Cassidy would provide states with a set amount of federal money that they could use as they choose to provide healthcare assistance to their residents. This federal funding would then be capped.

That would effectively end the federal government’s promise to guarantee health insurance for all low-income Americans.

What is the benefit of this arrangement?

The bill’s supporters say giving states more flexibility to decide how they provide healthcare assistance to their residents will free them to design better, locally controlled systems.

Graham and Cassidy note that unlike some earlier GOP repeal bills, their proposal keeps most of the tax revenue raised by the 2010 law, allowing the federal government to continue providing hundreds of billions of dollars of assistance.

At the same time, putting a cap on that aid in future years would limit how much healthcare spending the federal government would have to make.

The Graham-Cassidy bill stops federal healthcare aid to states in 2026, meaning Congress would have to find new money for aid after that.

It would mean higher premium and copays and states would have to come up with more money themselves


The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has estimated that previous GOP repeal bills that gave states the ability to waive consumer protections would make it harder for sicker people to get health coverage.

That would, in turn, drive up the number of uninsured.

Independent analyses of proposals to cap federal funding to states also estimate that would lead to an erosion in coverage as the cost of providing healthcare assistance over time grows more rapidly than the cap.

Graham-Cassidy would likely have the most impact on coverage in states such as California, New York, Illinois and others that have expanded coverage most aggressively under the current law.

The arcane funding formula in the new GOP proposal would effectively shift money away from these states to more conservative states that have resisted coverage expansions.

That could mean much less assistance for poor residents of California and elsewhere and consequently major coverage losses in those states.

[NorthCarolinaLiberty]

Keeps all the Obamacare taxes.


Well, at least you're happy about something.

[Zippyjuan]

Block grants would expire after 2026 meaning states would have to completely fund any healthcare themselves (and significantly raise their taxes to pay for it while the Federal Government keeps taking in the Obamacare tax revenues).

Key swing votes in the Senate would lose lots of funding under GrahamCare.

://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2017/09/20/this-new-study-deals-a-blow-to-trumps-latest-obamacare-repeal-push/?utm_term=.b35119b7451a


Arizona would get $11 billion less. McCain, who was one of the three senators who sank “skinny repeal,” has said he may oppose the bill because he is unhappy with the lack of regular order, but on top of that, we now learn his state would take a hit, too.

Alaska would get $1 billion less. Murkowski has emerged as a key swing vote — she also helped sink “skinny repeal” and has opposed deep Medicaid cuts. She has said she wants to learn more about how the new bill would impact her state. Now she knows. “Alaska might seem like a big state geographically, but it’s actually a small state in terms of health spending, so a $1 billion reduction is a massive cut,” Topher Spiro, a health policy analyst at the Center for American Progress, told me today.

Ohio would get $9 billion less. Portman is in a weird spot, because Ohio Gov. John Kasich has been scaldingly critical of the bill, and now it looks as though it would really wallop his state.

Maine would get $1 billion less. Collins, who also helped sink skinny repeal, is said to be leaning against Graham-Cassidy, and now this should help cement her opposition. Spiro adds that Maine is also a state with low health spending, making this a big cut.

West Virginia would get $1 billion less. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) has repeatedly criticized in sharp moral terms the damage that the previous repeal bill’s deep Medicaid cuts would inflict on her constituents.

Rand Paul, who is thought to be a hard “no,” has previously criticized the bill for redistributing money among states.

[r3volution 3.0]

In place of the current law’s insurance subsidies and the Medicaid funding, Graham-Cassidy would provide states with a set amount of federal money that they could use as they choose to provide healthcare assistance to their residents

As they choose...

...provided they choose to "provide healthcare assistance to their residents," pursuant to federal regulations.

:rolleyes:

Basically, they're just pushing the existing system onto the States to administer, as federal satraps.