Paul Ryan and other House Republicans voted along party lines “Adopting rules for the One Hundred Fifteenth Congress.” The vote was 234 Yeas to 193 Nays. Three Republicans voted with Democrats to block the new rules for the 115th Congress. No big deal, right? and the New Rules passed. As many of you probably know, I have been writing about the PPACA/ACA/Obamacare since 2008; answering questions, presenting information, and rebutting the stories, outright lies, and silly remarks. I did a lot of Maggie Mahar’s editing to get her columns up on Angry Bear and subsequently became familiar with the healthcare law. Now before you attempt to get into this with me, I will say this; “it was not perfect; but, it was all we had for the time being.” Now we are going backwards. We will be worse off under the new healthcare law. Typically, this is not big deal except Randian Paul Ryan stuck a couple of sentences into the new House Rules. Before I get there, I want to take this a step backwards and explain. I was angry enough after reading the Rules Change to write my Congressman Mike Bishop. This is unusual for me as it typically is a waste of time. They represent upwards of 700,000 people in high density states. It was never supposed to be that way until Congress decided to freeze the number of Reps in the House.
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Paul Ryan and other House Republicans voted along party lines “Adopting rules for the One Hundred Fifteenth Congress.” The vote was 234 Yeas to 193 Nays. Three Republicans voted with Democrats to block the new rules for the 115th Congress. No big deal, right? and the New Rules passed.
As many of you probably know, I have been writing about the PPACA/ACA/Obamacare since 2008; answering questions, presenting information, and rebutting the stories, outright lies, and silly remarks. I did a lot of Maggie Mahar’s editing to get her columns up on Angry Bear and subsequently became familiar with the healthcare law. Now before you attempt to get into this with me, I will say this; “it was not perfect; but, it was all we had for the time being.” Now we are going backwards. We will be worse off under the new healthcare law.
Typically, this is not big deal except Randian Paul Ryan stuck a couple of sentences into the new House Rules. Before I get there, I want to take this a step backwards and explain. I was angry enough after reading the Rules Change to write my Congressman Mike Bishop. This is unusual for me as it typically is a waste of time. They represent upwards of 700,000 people in high density states. It was never supposed to be that way until Congress decided to freeze the number of Reps in the House. If the number of constituents represented had stayed at 60,000; my vote and opinion would have counted for more when drop kicking him across the room. There is a reason they did this and if they did not do this, the number of Reps would have been much higher.
I wrote Congress Person Mike and started explaining how Senator Sessions with the help of Rep Upton also from Michigan wrote the GAO asking why the HHS could appropriate funds. The GAO said they could not; but, the GAO left an opening for the HHS and the Administration by stating they could transfer funds from other programs into the Risk Corridor program. The Risk Corridor program for the PPACA is a 3-year program. Since there was a lot of risk for insurance companies and Co-ops, it was established along the same lines as the one for Part D Medicare which the Republicans created. An insurance company was limited to 3% profit,. If you made more than that, you kicked into the program a ratio of those profits. The higher the profit, the more you kicked in. If you lost money as the new Co-ops did, the program gave them money if the loss was greater than 3%. The CBO estimated the Risk Corridor program would generate $16 billion over its 3 year life time. Companies were taking on people who were denied insurance before due to pre-existing conditions. It was a higher risk and no one could be sure how many high risk insured they would get. They could not deny insuring them or increase premiums. This worked well for Part D.
Session and Upton were able to make the Risk Corridor program budget revenue neutral so the HHS and administration could not appropriate funds for it. They enlisted the aid of Rep Jack Kingston Appropriations Panel Chairman who stuck a sentence in Section 227 of the 2015 Appropriations Act (dated December 16, 2014). The sentence said; no
“funds made available by this Act from the Federal Hospital Insurance Trust Fund or the Federal Supplemental Medical Insurance Trust Fund, or transferred from other accounts funded by this Act to the “Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services–Program Management” account, may be used for payments under section 1342(b)(1) of Public Law 111-148 (relating to risk corridors).”
If you are wondering why Co-ops went bankrupt, healthcare premiums started to go up, insurance companies withdrew, and insurances companies lost millions; here is the reason why. So I laid this treachery on Congressman Mike Bishop.
I then proceeded to tell him that under reconciliation, you can not create a budget deficit. This would happen with the repeal of the PPACA. In Summer of 2016, the CBO estimated it would be ~$350 billion.
Now, back to my Roll Call on New House Rules. Randian Paul Ryan stuck a few sentence into the House Rules for the 115th Congress. Here is what they said:
“This subsection shall not apply to any bill or joint resolution, or amendment thereto or conference report thereon –
(A) repealing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and title I and subtitle B of title II of the Health Care and Education Affordability Reconciliation Act of 2010;
(B) reforming the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and the Health Care and Education Affordability Reconciliation Act of 2010.”
In simple English here is what it meant; the CBO could not review the Repeal of the PPACA and the costs associated with it. My question to Congressperson Mike Bishop was; “Why did you vote yes to this knowing you were covering up the truth and creating a budget defict?”
Not that I will get one; but, I asked for a return reply.