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How Does It Compare To Bidens Healthcare Plan
If Biden wins, there will be a different, and seemingly bolder set of priorities for reshaping the ACA.
The possibility of a public option is one of the biggest differences between his plan and Trumps.
The Biden campaign also says it will eliminate the cap on ACA insurance subsidies, so that people making more than 400% of the federal poverty level qualify for tax credits.
Youre going to see a big push in trying to make it more affordable, Emanuel said.
Another campaign promise from the Biden team: lowering the cap on how much coverage in the ACA marketplace can cost, from 9.86% of a persons income to 8.5%.
Regardless of who wins the election, its going to take a lot longer than four more years for this healthcare law to mature.
Just look at how many times Social Securitys been reformed and tweaked, since it was enacted by President Roosevelt in 1935. Or the changes that have been brought to the Medicare and Medicaid systems, since they were signed into law by President Johnson in 1965.
President Obamas Affordable Care Act has joined this cannon of sweeping reforms. As such, it will take decades to refine, through many more presidents, and many more sessions of Congress. Despite what you mightve heard about repeal or replace, improving it will take more continuous, measured improvement of the system than any one President alone can provide.
Trumps New Health Care Legacy: Big Expansion Of Federal Role
The administration’s massive coronavirus spending features a new program experts say mirrors a single-payer system.
President Donald Trump listens during a meeting with health care executives Tuesday at the White House. | Evan Vucci/AP Photo
04/15/2020 04:30 AM EDT
President Donald Trumps coronavirus fight has turned an administration that spent years trying to shrink the nations safety net into the driving force behind a sudden expansion of government involvement in American health care.
The Trump administration is already pumping hundreds ofbillions of dollars into a key health sector that it previously vowed to rein in, expanding Medicare benefits and boosting payments to state Medicaid programs by an estimated$50 billion, while promising to directly pay for coronavirus treatment for thousands of uninsured in what some experts say mirrors a single-payer system.
Its a crisis response that has cast aside a decade of Republican orthodoxy and many of the administrations original health care goals, in realization that Trumps health care legacy and reelection could hinge on the fate of the next few months.
President Trump is probably now overseeing one of the biggest expansions in government health spending in one year ever, said Larry Levitt, the executive vice president for health policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation.
CORONAVIRUS: WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW
President Donald Trump and Melania Trump have tested positive for Covid-19.
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States Allowed To Add Work Requirements To Medicaid
What is it? Medicaid expansion was a key part of the ACA. The federal government helped pay for states to expand Medicaid eligibility beyond families to include all low-income adults, and to raise the income threshold, so that more people would be eligible. So far, 37 states and Washington have opted to expand Medicaid.
What changed? Under Trump, if they get approval from the federal government, states can now require Medicaid beneficiaries to prove with documentation that they either work or go to school.
What does the administration say?When you consider that, less than five years ago, Medicaid was expanded to nearly 15 million new working-age adults, its fair that states want to add community engagement requirements for those with the ability to meet them. Its easier to give someone a card its much harder to build a ladder to help people climb their way out of poverty. But even though it is harder, its the right thing to do. Seema Verma, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Washington, Sept. 27, 2018
Whats the impact? Even though HealthCare.gov and the state insurance exchanges get a lot of attention, the majority of people who gained health care coverage after the passage of the ACA 12.7 million people actually got their coverage by being newly able to enroll in Medicaid.
With Klobuchar Out The Vp Pool Narrows For Biden
Melissa Holzberg and Liz Brown-Kaiser
WASHINGTON The V.P. field narrowed Thursday night when Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar withdrew from the vetting process.
America must seize on the moment and I truly believe as I actually told the V.P. last night when I called him that I think this is a moment to put a woman of color on that ticket, Klobuchar said in an interview on MSNBC.
Biden , saying Klobuchar has the grit and determination to take on any challenge and help beat Donald Trump.
But as Klobuchar noted, calls for Biden to put a woman of color on the ticket are only growing. Here are the moves vice presidential contenders still in the veepstakes made this week:
Sen. Kamala Harris: Harris was among a group of senators to put forward a bill to commemorate Juneteenth as a federal holiday. Harris is one of four Black women known to be advancing to a more comprehensive vetting stage with the Biden campaign. She joins Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, Florida Rep. Val Demings and former national security adviser Susan Rice.
Harris stock in the veepstakes has remained steady since Biden became the presumptive Democratic nominee. She has defended her past as a prosecutor an issue that dogged her in the primary race with progressives and her personal relationship with the Biden family could make her more likely to appear on the ticket than those with less name recognition.
Check out the NBC News political units coverage of the veepstakes here.
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Slash Restraints At Fda Get Blessed With More Miracle Drugs
On receiving thisnews, Megans dad, John, fought with everything he had to save the life of his precious child. He founded a company to look for a cure, and helped develop the drug that saved Megans life. Today she is 20 years oldand a sophomore at Notre Dame.Megans story is about the unbounded power of a fathers love for a daughter.
But our slow and burdensome approval process at the Food and Drug Administration keeps too many advances, like the one that saved Megans life, from reaching those in need.If we slash the restraints, not just at the FDA but across our Government, then we will be blessed with far more miracles like Megan. In fact, our children will grow up in a Nation of miracles.
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Biden Campaign Releases Digital Ad On Floyd Protests Swipes At Trump
The Biden campaign has released a new digital ad in light of the George Floyd protests, which is now playing on social media platforms across six battleground states.
The one-minute digital ad, released both in English and Spanish, features portions of Bidens recent speech on civic unrest and though it does not mention President Donald Trump explicitly, Biden suggests that hes failing to lead at a pivotal moment as the ad shows images of the president, including him holding the Bible.
I promise you this, I won’t traffic in fear and division. I won’t fan the flames of hate, Biden says in the ad over photos of Trump. I’ll seek to heal the racial wounds that have long plagued our country, not use it for political gain.
The ad continues with Biden vowing to take responsibility as president, saying that the job is about the American people, not just him.
When Biden says its incumbent on Americans to build a better future, something that he describes as the most American thing we do, pictures of Biden from his meetings with African American leaders in Wilmington and Philadelphia are shown to contrast what he has done in the days after the killing of George Floyd with the recent actions of Trump.
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Tipton The Latest Incumbent To Lose Party’s Nomination
Ben Kamisar
WASHINGTON There was a big surprise in Tuesdays primary elections five-term incumbent Colorado Republican Rep. Scott Tipton lost to Lauren Boebert, a gun-rights activist and restaurant owner who flouted coronavirus regulations and has spoken favorably about a fringe conspiracy theory.
Incumbents rarely lose, especially in a primary. But Tipton joins a handful of other incumbents whose parties voted them out so far this cycle.
Heres a look at the House incumbents who have already lost their party’s nomination, and how they went down.
llinois Democratic Rep. Daniel Lipinski
The writing was on the wall for Lipinski, one of the only House Democrats who had supported anti-abortion rights legislation.
While nonprofit executive Marie Newman fell just a few thousand votes short to Lipinski in 2018, Newman was able to get over the hump and take Lipinski down in the 2020 primary.
Newman had a lot of progressive allies in her corner a group affiliated with EMILYs List spent about $1 million on TV ads to boost her, and several influential progressive groups, including NARAL, backed her primary bid.
Illinois third congressional district, which includes a portion of Chicago and the surrounding suburbs, is considered a safely-Democratic one, as 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton won it by double-digits. So Newman is expected to join Congress in 2021.
Iowa Republican Rep. Steve King
Kings loss came after a cost him support within his own party.
Perez Says No More Democratic Caucuses
The Associated Press
Democratic National Committee Chair Tom Perez said Monday that the handful of 2020 presidential caucuses should be the last the party ever holds.
He didnt specifically name Iowa, which for decades has led off the nominating calendar, but his position would represent a seismic shift in the partys traditions.
Perezs term as chair will end before the 2024 nominating calendar is determined.
But he told The Associated Press on the opening day of the Democratic National Convention that he plans to use the bully pulpit as a former chair to make sure we continue the progress of changes after the bitter 2016 primary fight between nominee Hillary Clinton and runner-up Bernie Sanders.
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Biden Releases New Digital Ads On Restoring Empathy
WASHINGTON A day after Joe Biden lambasted President Trump as “exactly the wrong person to lead us,” the presumptive nominee’s campaign released a new digital ad, with three different versions, building off of the message of restoring core American values in the White House.
The ads don’t mention the presidents name directly but instead hone in on their candidates commitment to family in an effort to stress his kitchen table values that have guided him throughout the trials and joys of life.
The Biden campaign unveiled their first digital ad narrated by actor Jeffrey Wright, who describes how the then-senator of Delaware commuted four hours on Amtrak from Wilmington to the nations capital to be with his two sons every night following the death of his wife and infant daughter weeks before he was sworn in to the U.S. Senate.
People in Washington didnt get why Joe Biden would travel all that way. But in neighborhoods all over this country, theres no distance parents wont go for their kids, Wright stresses in the minute-long ad. When Joe Biden traveled those four hours, he wasnt just going home for his kids, he was going to work for them too, just like he will for yours.
You know, you see growing up rich and looking down on people is a bit different than how I grew up here, he said in a dig toward Trump.
So What Does Trump Actually Believe
that Mr Trump tends to conflate climate change with environmentalism more generally.
He doesnt really understand what climate change is about, says Professor Michael Gerrard, an environmental law professor at the University of Columbia.
Meanwhile, Joseph Goffman, executive director of Harvards Environmental Law Programme, argues that Mr Trump believes nothing on climate change hes a climate nihilist.
Mr Trumps position is based on his need to appeal to the part of the Republican establishment that rejects climate policy, Mr Goffman, who previously worked as Democratic staff director on the Senate environmental committee, adds.
Joseph Pinion, a Republican strategist who has called for more action on climate change, also argues that Mr Trump looks at the issue from a political, rather than a moral perspective.
Hes not going to win running on the environment, Mr Pinion says. In America, climate is not an issue, so the reason it is not an issue for President Trump is because he cares about winning. And the reason Democrats are OK with it not being a priority for them, is because they want to beat him.
Ultimately it doesnt matter what President Trump believes, what matters is what hes doing we need to recognise climate change is not a priority of his administration.
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Progressive Pac Launches $5 Million Digital Ad Buy In Battleground States
Melissa Holzberg
WASHINGTON American Bridge PAC, a progressive group, launched a $5 million digital ad campaign Friday aimed at white, blue-collar voters in battleground states. The campaign, which complements the group’s $20 million TV and radio buy from earlier this month, showcases President Trump’s lagging support with his key base in 2016.
Bradley Beychok, president of American Bridge, said that this effort is part of their “swing county project” to identify up to 80 counties with voters who may have given Trump a chance in 2016, but are switching their vote to Joe Biden this time around.
“Theyre people from the local community talking about why they gave Donald Trump a chance,” Beychok said of the unscripted ads. He added, “Its really important that theres pro-Biden content which youre seeing from the Biden campaign and groups like Unite the Country. And with us theres a slight contrast heres what Trump people are saying.”
The ads are running in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, like the campaign’s TV and radio buys, and will run through Labor Day.
One of the ads running in Pennsylvania features a 2016 Trump voter who says the economy, which Trump often touts as his biggest accomplishment, is only working well for the wealthy.
“Clearly white voters without a degree were really the lynch pin of Trumps coalition, and hes losing support from all sectors of white voters, and that feels really seismic,” Beychok said.
Bidens Dnc Speech Will Reflect How Trumps Presidency Has Shaped His Campaign Source Says
Mike Memoli
Joe Biden will deliver what in many ways is the speech of his political life tonight. And his preparation reflects that, a source close to the process tells NBC News.
Bidens acceptance speech was developed and written over the course of the summer. While it has evolved through the process, it was largely locked weeks ago “which is nearly unheard of in Bidenland, as one source put it.
Biden began rehearsing the speech at least two weeks ago a timeline that lines up with an unexpected trip he made to the Chase Center in Wilmington even before the venue was announced as the location for his remarks.
Biden, as always, has a heavy hand in writing his own words. Others involved include his chief strategist Mike Donilon and Vinay Reddy, a speechwriter who has been with him off and on since the second term as vice president. Hes also been preparing with Michael Sheehan, an experienced speechwriter and coach who, like Biden, overcame a stutter.
He knows exactly what he wants to say and hes been saying it from the outset, one source said, pointing to his consistent case that this election represents a battle for the soul of the nation.
It was mocked in the early part of the campaign but it feels like the world, or at least a large share of the electorate, has caught up to where Biden has been, the source added. Joe Biden, however this campaign ends, will have no regrets or questions. He is running as himself and he has been saying this from day one.
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How Price Transparency Would Revolutionize Healthcare
Another Trump policy helps the chronically ill save tax-free for their health care. For example, diabetics can make deposits to their health savings accounts for the first time even if they have a plan that covers insulin before meeting their deductible. The president has also taken action to increase kidney donations and dialysis provided in patients homes rather than predominantly in hospitals and clinics.
And on pharmaceuticals, the president should tout tangible successes. Overall, drug price inflation was just 1.5 percent from 2017 to 2019, in part from a surge of competition introduced after a historic number of generic drugs were approved by the Food and Drug Administration. And the president signed the Right to Try Act, permitting very sick patients to access experimental, but potentially life-saving, treatments.
While the president certainly needs to articulate his vision for future health reform, he has a good health-care record that he can run on now and he should use the forthcoming debates to make this case.
Brian Blase is a research fellow at the Galen Institute and the Foundation for Government Accountability, and the president of Blase Policy Strategies LLC. He served as a special assistant to President Trump at the National Economic Council, 2017-19.
