Viewpoints: Misguided, Cruel GOP Bill Will Lead To A Darker Future For Millions Of Californians
A selection of opinions on health care developments from around the state.
Sacramento Bee:
GOP Health Plan Hurts 6.7 Million Californians. Why?
A new UC Berkeley study projects that 6.7 million Californians could lose coverage under Graham-Cassidy in 2027. This could include 1.5 million children, seniors and people with disabilities who rely on Medi-Cal, as California would face excruciating choices on Medi-Cal eligibility. (Sandra Hernandez, 9/21)
Los Angeles Times:
The Disastrous Impact Of The GOP's Obamacare Repeal Plan, In Three Devastating Charts
The healthcare consulting firm Avalere on Wednesday released the latest in a series of independent analyses of Senate Republicans’ new effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act. The findings are beyond ugly. They show devastating cuts in healthcare funding for adults, children and the disabled — in effect, almost every population category in the U.S. other than seniors enrolled in Medicare. (Michael Hiltzik, 9/20)
Los Angeles Times:
Graham-Cassidy: Another Day, Another Lousy GOP Healthcare Bill
The latest proposal — by Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Bill Cassidy (R-La.), Dean Heller (R-Nev.) and Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) — suffers from the same fundamental problems as all of its predecessors. Aiming to lower insurance costs for the healthy, it would allow states to herd people with preexisting conditions or potentially expensive risks — say, women who might want maternity coverage — into insurance gulags with egregiously high premiums. (9/21)
Orange County Register:
Latest Health Care Bill Is Too Hasty, Risky
Republicans in Congress have not given up on altering our health care system, and the White House is prepared to go along for the ride. Unfortunately, the new bill, led by Reps. Bill Cassidy, R.-La., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., is too hasty and too risky to merit support. (9/21)
Los Angeles Times:
Sen. Cassidy's Obamacare Repeal Bill Gets Blasted By The Health Secretary Of His Home State
Senate Republicans are preparing to vote on their last-gasp Affordable Care Act repeal bill without estimates from the Congressional Budget Office of its effects on the deficit, health insurance coverage, or premiums. So someone else has to step in to inform the senators of the measure’s grim consequences. (Michael Hiltzik, 9/19)
San Francisco Chronicle:
Obamacare Alternatives Fall Short
The enduring frustration with the ACA — much of it properly directed at the costly, creaky and often cruel system it incrementally improved — is understandable. But the critics’ efforts to undo it keep unintentionally underscoring its centrist pragmatism compared with the alternatives. (9/18)
Los Angeles Times:
Believe It Or Not, Graham-Cassidy Socializes The Cost Of Health Insurance
There are plenty of things wrong with the Graham-Cassidy-Heller-Johnson proposal to overhaul Obamacare (and Medicaid, while it’s at it), from its cockamamie approach to helping people not insured by their employers to its blithe indifference to the rising cost of medical care. But give sponsoring Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Bill Cassidy (R-La.), Dean Heller (R-Nev.) and Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) credit for doing something remarkable: They got even the most conservative of their Republican colleagues to agree to socialize more of the cost of health insurance. (Jon Healey, 9/21)
Los Angeles Times:
Repeal And Replace Is Back, And Scarier Than Ever
Like the villain in a slasher movie, Senate Republicans keep coming for the health insurance of tens of millions of Americans. After Sen. John McCain’s dramatic “no” vote seemed to finish off this year’s attempts to repeal the Affordable Care Act, a proposal by two senators with mostly unearned reputations for moderation — Bill Cassidy (R-La.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) — represents the latest threat to the many people who gained access to healthcare under President Obama. The scariest part is that it might just pass. (Scott Lemieux, 9/19)
Los Angeles Times:
The GOP's Last-Ditch Obamacare Repeal Bill May Be The Worst One Yet
The Republican effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act is back, a zombie again on the march weeks after it was declared dead. The newest incarnation is Cassidy-Graham, named after chief sponsors Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. Compared with its predecessors, the bill would increase the ranks of America’s medically uninsured more — by millions of people — cost state governments billions more and pave the way for the elimination of all protection for those with preexisting medical conditions. (Michael Hiltzik, 9/18)
San Diego Union-Tribune:
Vaping Debate: Are Health Officials Deceiving Us For Our Own Good?
Even with new federal rules meant to discourage “vaping” taking effect last month, the battle over “e-cigarettes” in the United States just keeps building. More than 9 million Americans regularly use vaping devices in which they apply heat to a liquid — sometimes but not always including nicotine — to create small plumes of vapor that they inhale. So are “e-cigarettes” just part of the continuum of dangerous ways to ingest nicotine and other harmful chemicals in tobacco, and thus a public health nightmare? (Chris Reed, 9/21)
Los Angeles Times:
There Are 3 Types Of Single-Payer 'concern Trolls' — And They All Want To Undermine Universal Healthcare
Some of the naysayers are conservatives who simply abhor “big government.” Some have perfectly valid reasons to question the merits of single payer in general or Sanders’ methods in particular. Yet others claim they support universal healthcare in theory (one day, perhaps) but cannot do so now because of a “concern.” They are “concern trolls” — broadly defined as “a person who disingenuously expresses concern about an issue with the intention of undermining or derailing genuine discussion.” (Adam H. Johnson, 9/21)
San Jose Mercury News:
Sanders’ Medicare For All Bill Comes Up Short; Show Us The Money
Bernie Sanders talks big, but the record shows that in his 25 years in Congress he has failed to deliver on any of his ideological proposals. Expect the same from the independent Vermont senator’s ambitious Medicare for all plan. It’s impossible to take his single-payer plan seriously because it fails to address the single biggest issue: how to pay for it. (9/18)
San Francisco Chronicle:
A Growing Movement For Single-Payer Health Care
From a candidate who famously declared that single payer will “never ever come to pass” and branded it as offering everyone “a pony” to legislation — Sen. Bernie Sanders’ Senate Bill 1804, co-sponsored by a third of Senate Democrats, and Rep. John Conyers’ House Resolution 676 by half of House Democrats. What happened? A huge shift toward participatory democracy, with millions of people participating in rewriting what is possible and necessary for their lives. (RoseAnn DeMoro, 9/18)
Los Angeles Times:
Does Bernie Sanders' Single-Payer Plan Have A Shot?
Sen. Bernie Sanders’ “Medicare for All” plan, unveiled last week, is an ambitious and (to many) enticing idea: a single, government-run health plan with generous benefits for everyone — just like most industrialized countries have enjoyed for decades. If only it were feasible in today’s United States. (Doyle McManus, 9/17)
Los Angeles Times:
Are Democratic And Republican Healthcare Proposals Really Equally 'Extreme'?
Will the real moderate party please stand up? On the same day that socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) introduced his “Medicare for All” healthcare plan, Sens. Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.) and Bill Cassidy (R-La.) introduced a last ditch effort to sorta-kinda repeal and replace Obamacare. Despite having zero chance of being passed any time soon, Sanders’ bill grabbed the limelight for two reasons. (Jonah Goldberg, 9/19)
Orange County Register:
Lack Of Health Care Access A Gateway To Homelessness
Over the next week, the U.S. Senate will consider whether to repeal Obamacare and replace it with the so-called Graham-Cassidy solution. To be clear, there are some aspects of the Affordable Care Act that are troublesome for working Americans, such as the so-called Cadillac tax on employer-sponsored health care plans. But this bill is not the answer. (Jennifer Muir Beuthin, 9/22)