The Senate passed a bill Thursday that would both repeal significant portions of ObamaCare and defund Planned Parenthood.

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The New American

Monday, 07 December 2015

Senate Votes to Repeal Much of ObamaCare, Defund Planned Parenthood

Written by  Michael Tennant

The Senate passed a bill Thursday that would both repeal significant portions of ObamaCare and defund Planned Parenthood. This marks the first time that chamber of Congress has approved any type of ObamaCare repeal, in contrast to the dozens of such bills passed by the House of Representatives.

“Middle-class Americans continue to call on Washington to build a bridge away from ObamaCare. They want better care. They want real health reform,” said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). “For too long, Democrats did everything to prevent Congress from passing the type of legislation necessary to help these Americans who are hurting. Today, that ends.”

Democrats, of course, controlled the Senate from 2010, when the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was passed, through 2014 and blocked all attempts at ObamaCare repeal during that period. Even after Republicans took charge, the minority was still able to stall repeal by threatening a filibuster. But the GOP outflanked them this time by using a parliamentary maneuver known as budget reconciliation to bring the bill, already passed by the House, to the floor for a vote. Ironically, this is the same tactic the Democrats, despite possessing a filibuster-proof majority at the time, utilized to ram the ACA through the Senate in late 2009.

The bill passed 52-47, with all Democrats plus two Republicans opposed. Senators Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) voted against the bill because of the amendment defunding Planned Parenthood, which they tried unsuccessfully to get removed. Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) missed the vote because he was out campaigning for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination.

 

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President Obama’s healthcare law won’t erode employer-based health insurance — but it will raise some companies’ costs by nearly 10 percent, according to a new analysis from the Urban Institute.

Politics, Legislation and Economy News

Economic News  :    Rising Costs – Healthcare

Study: Costs will rise on mid-size firms from new healthcare law

By Sam Baker

President Obama’s healthcare law won’t erode employer-based health insurance — but it will raise some companies’ costs by nearly 10 percent, according to a new analysis from the Urban Institute.

Although the law’s critics usually focus on small businesses, the new paper says medium-sized firms will see the biggest cost increase.

Mid-sized businesses — firms that have between 101 and 1,000 employees — would have seen a 9.5 percent jump in their total healthcare costs if the Affordable Care Act had been fully in place this year, the paper says. (Many of the law’s key provisions don’t take effect until 2014.)

Small businesses would have seen their costs fall by 1.4 percent. Firms with more than 1,000 workers would have seen a 4.3 percent increase.

The report confirms one central criticism of the healthcare law — that it will increase employers’ costs — while also undercutting charges that the law will lead employers to quit offering healthcare coverage. Overall, about 4 million more employees would have had healthcare coverage if the ACA had been in place this year, the Urban Institute found.

Higher costs stem largely from expanded coverage, the report says.

“Overall, the evidence simply does not support critics’ arguments that the ACA will burden employers and undermine employer-sponsored health insurance,” the paper says. “On the contrary, except for a cost increase to mid-size employers due largely to enrollment increases, the ACA benefits rather than burdens small employers who want to provide health insurance.”

Small businesses are central to many criticisms of the new law. The National Federation of Independent Business was part of the lawsuit decided by the Supreme Court this summer, and Republican lawmakers argue that the law’s new mandates will crush small employers.

But according to the Urban Institute analysis, tax credits and purchasing efficiencies will help small businesses. New mandates, though, will make coverage more expensive for mid-size and large employers.

Medium-sized companies are less likely to offer health benefits than their larger counterparts, the paper says, and would therefore have to pay more in penalties. The healthcare law charges employers a fine for each worker who receives a government subsidy to buy insurance on his or her own.

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• Bending the cost curve: Obamacare to raise costs (utsandiego.com)
• Study: Costs will rise on mid-size firms from new healthcare law (nalert.blogspot.com)
• Study: Health care costs to increase for business under health law (bizjournals.com)
• Five things that people who want Romney to repeal ObamaCare ought to know (medcitynews.com)
• Could small businesses skirt Obamacare’s mandates? (washingtonpost.com)
• Study: Romney health care plan to leave 72M uninsured (cbsnews.com)
• STUDY: Obamacare Reduces Costs For Small Businesses (thinkprogress.org)
• ACA: An Impossible Mandate (psychologytoday.com)
• Papa John’s Pizza Will Raise Prices in Response to Obama Healthcare Law (scrubsandsuits.com)