#obamacare lite
“I didn’t run on Paul Ryan’s plan of Obamacare Lite. In fact, I think most conservatives across the country didn’t run on Obamacare Lite.”
-Sen. Rand Paul
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Watch the video here!
From a Rand Paul op-ed:
When did Republicans begin to believe that insurance companies should be put on the dole? That they should be bailed out when any of their customers become sick?
When did Republicans begin to believe that the federal government should force you to pay a penalty to a private insurance company if you can’t afford insurance?
When did Republicans begin to believe that we should levy a special tax penalty on those who choose to buy really good health insurance?
The current Ryan Plan — “Obamacare Lite” — is not about patients. It isn’t about better health care. It isn’t about lowering costs.
It is, plain and simple, about getting more money to the insurance companies and running more of your life from Washington.
I am a career physician. I spent years training and learning to be a doctor. I did it for patients. I don’t give a flip about guaranteeing the profits of insurance companies. And as a Senator, I shouldn’t, either.
Watch the video here!
“Though I want to believe the glass is half full, I am tempted, very tempted, to smash a glass half full of Obamacare Lite — smash that glass to smithereens!”
Written by Sen. Rand Paul for Breitbart:
Washington politicians are so far gone that the Constitution is not even an afterthought, and their master seems to be whatever industry funds them.
It doesn’t have to be this way. We just had an election about change, about draining the swamp. President Trump promised to be different, and I believe he sincerely wants to be. But he is being taken for a ride through the swamp right now on “Obamacare Lite.”
For four STRAIGHT elections, REPUBLICANS ran on repealing Obamacare, and now “Republican orthodoxy” — I’m told — is keeping insurance subsidies, mandates, taxes, and insurance company bailouts.
That’s not acceptable to me. And it isn’t keeping our promise.
Though I want to believe the glass is half full, I am tempted, very tempted, to smash a glass half full of Obamacare Lite — smash that glass to smithereens! …
The current Ryan Plan — “Obamacare Lite” — is not about patients. It isn’t about better health care. It isn’t about lowering costs.
It is, plain and simple, about getting more money to the insurance companies and running more of your life from Washington.
The American Action Forum was set up to run ads against conservatives who oppose the “Obamacare Lite” bill. Guess who’s funding that PAC?
Yep, the pharmaceutical companies.
House Republicans like Speaker Paul Ryan tell us that the new health care bill will repeal Obamacare and lower costs. We’ve already shown why that’s untrue. Now, evidence that the pharmaceutical companies are supporting the bill with millions of dollars proves that costs will remain high and benefit them, not you.
Stand with Rand and oppose Obamacare Lite!
If Mike Pence sits as Senate President, full Obamacare repeal needs just 51 votes. This is a much better idea than the Obamacare Lite bill!
Written by David Wright for CNN:
Sen. Rand Paul on Wednesday backed a controversial method for passing Obamacare repeal that could dramatically change the way the Senate operates, if successful, but which faces long odds, even among Republicans.
The proposal – which has also drawn support from Sen. Ted Cruz – purports to ease passage of a more expansive Obamacare replacement bill by foregoing traditional Senate rules and seating Vice President Mike Pence as Senate chair for the vote.
Paul argued that with Pence as chair, he would be empowered to make decisions about what can be passed through budget reconciliation, a procedural distinction that has a simple majority-vote-threshold. That would allow Republicans to bypass the larger, 60-vote requirement that would otherwise be required to repeal and replace key components of the Affordable Care Act – a major roadblock.
Paul – who opposes the current GOP health care bill moving through the House – said Wednesday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” that leadership “is afraid of the Senate parliamentarian. But we’ve read the rules, and it looks to us like the vice president can sit in the chair, and the vice president can decide for the Senate what is reconcilable.”
He explained, “the rules, the budget rules that everyone touts and are so arcane, they say the chair rules, and not the parliamentarian. The chair rules. The vice president has the prerogative of sitting in the chair, and if they want this done, the vice president should come to the Senate.”
Paul’s proposal comes as Republicans are under growing pressure to pass an Obamacare repeal bill – but divisions within the party, a slim Senate majority, and legislative procedure have complicated those efforts.
“What are the people saying that are for this on Capitol Hill? Well, they’re trying to tell us it’s a binary decision, that you can either take it or leave it.”
Written by John Hayward for Breitbart:
“This bill would replace the subsidies, penalties, and mandates of Obamacare with subsidies, penalties, and mandates of what we’re calling ‘Obamacare-lite,’” said Massie, who is obviously not a supporter of the bill.
“Frankly, the number of calls to my office – and we only keep track of the constituents who call, in other words, those who are among the 750,000 people I represent – the calls are running 275 against this bill to 4 supporting the bill,” he revealed. “That’s like almost 100 to 1 against this bill. And I can tell you, every other congressional office is receiving the same number of calls.” …
Massie said he could confirm the vote count offered by Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), who has predicted the bill will be pulled and extensively rewritten.
“I have personally spoken to 29 colleagues here, conservative colleagues who oppose the bill as of yesterday evening. That’s not counting the moderates, and there are at least six of those on the record in the news. So there are three dozen against this bill,” he said.
“What are the people saying that are for this on Capitol Hill? Well, they’re trying to tell us it’s a binary decision, that you can either take it or leave it,” Massie said of the bill’s proponents. “We think the negotiation starts when one party says ‘no.’ That’s why we’re going to say no.” …
“It’s an interesting phenomenon in Kentucky,” he observed. “We’ve got Senator Paul against this bill. I’m against this bill. I can’t speak for our governor, but it’s interesting that he has not come out and publicly supported this bill. We’re one of those Medicaid expansion states where we’ve got to try and get the genie back in the bottle, and the governor is doing a great job working on that, but he’s not going head-over-heels for this bill, even though Trump and Mike Pence have both been to Kentucky.”
Rand Paul knows of at least 35 Republicans who plan on voting against the Obamacare Lite bill. Just 21 “No” votes kill the bill.
Written by Matthew Boyle for Breitbart:
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) told Breitbart News exclusively on Tuesday afternoon that he expects House Speaker Paul Ryan will be forced to pull the American Health Care Act (AHCA) before a scheduled Thursday vote because Ryan will not get the votes to pass the legislation.
The AHCA has been dubbed “Obamacare Lite” by Paul — a leading conservative critic of the plan — and by other conservatives as “RyanCare,” “RINO-Care,” and “Obamacare 2.0,” since the bill does not actually fully repeal Obamacare and keeps many of the main structures that the now-former President Barack Obama installed in the healthcare system. It has come under intense scrutiny from both sides of the Republican Party — moderates and conservatives are lining up against the bill — and Ryan, despite publicly projecting confidence, cannot find the necessary 216 votes to pass the legislation. …
If you keep all the insurance mandates, and you keep subsidizing insurance, basically it’s Obamacare Lite. So I think it’s still Obamacare Lite. The modifications, some are going in the right direction, but they actually expanded some of the subsidies. So one of the new things about it is it’s actually $75 billion more in subsidies. So, I think they’re stuck trying to split the baby. They’re trying to give conservatives a few token changes. And they’re trying to give the moderates more subsidies. …
I’m still unclear as to why they completely ignored conservatives early on in the process and then they had the audacity to look at conservatives and say ‘this is what you all campaigned on.’ That just, frankly, was never true. I was elected in 2010 in the big Tea Party wave that was for repealing Obamacare root and branch, rip the whole thing out. We were for repealing it. I still think that our grassroots conservative supporters are for repealing it. But somewhere along the line, Paul Ryan decided that it wasn’t so much about repealing it but about replacing it with Obamacare Lite. And I think that was a tactical error on their part to think ‘oh, we’ll just be for this and everybody will be for this’ when in reality no conservatives are really for the Ryan plan.
Rand Paul says that Obamacare Lite would result in health insurance companies “socializing the losses and privatizing the gain.”
Written by Chris Larson for the Louisville Business Journal:
U.S. Sen. Rand Paul said he hopes the current Republican health care reform bill fails its vote in the U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday. …
Paul said the current Republican health care reform plan — which he called “Obamacare Lite” — would result in health insurance companies “socializing the losses and privatizing the gain” of health insurance business.
“That’s not fair; that’s crony capitalism,” Paul said. “Who wouldn’t love that in their business?”
He also said that government subsidies for health insurance create a price floor that allows health insurance prices to go up. …
He also encouraged the attendees to ask health care providers for prices for procedures and shop for better pricing to encourage price reductions through competition.
Paul cited the openness of the corrective eye surgery market as an example of price reduction through the mobility of prices, or the ability of prices to go up or down based on supply and consumer demand.
Paul criticized the current health care reform effort in the U.S. House of Representatives for removing the individual mandate — the requirement for people to have insurance — but allowing health insurance companies to charge consumers a fee of 30 percent of annual premiums for those who have lapses in coverage.
