" />

The Moderate Voice

An Internet hub with domestic and international news, analysis, original reporting, and popular features from the left, center, indies, centrists, moderates, and right


You are here: Home / Politics / Only three of the 21 GOP women voted against #trumpCare

Only three of the 21 GOP women voted against #trumpCare

by Leave a Comment

There are 435 members of the House of Representatives.

Only 83 of them are women. Of those, only 21 are Republican. Three of the GOP women voted against #trumpCare. The other 18 voted for it.

Of those 21 Republican women in the House of Representatives, six are in their first or second terms. Only four have served at least five terms.

Fact check

Each of these statements is contradicted by claims from some of the women voting “yes” on Thursday.

This is not a repeal and replace bill. It deals only with budgetary issues for procedural reasons (no supermajority vote requirement).

  • The bill retains the requirement that individuals have health insurance. The penalty for failure would be a one-year 30% surcharge paid to insurers.
  • It retains federal and state marketplaces.
  • It allows children to remain on their parents plan until age 26.
  • It reduces subsidies that the ACA provides to most people seeking health coverage through insurance marketplaces, thus increasing the cost of that insurance.
  • It gives states the authority to create their own “essential health benefits”.
  • It allows plans to reduce premiums on the young and increase them on the old.

Medicaid

The bill cuts 25% of the Medicaid budget, $880 billion, over the next decade according to the most recent CBO estimate.

Medicaid funds more than health coverage for the poor and disabled. School districts rely on Medicaid to provide services to millions of students with disabilities. In addition, “states would no longer have to consider schools eligible Medicaid providers, meaning they would not be entitled to reimbursements.” Because school districts are legally required to provide special education services, the budget will come from local or state taxes.

In a January survey of nearly 1,000 district officials in 42 states, nearly 70 percent of districts reported that they used [Medicaid funds] to pay the salaries of health care professionals who serve special education students.

Pre-existing conditions

How do you define “protect”?

The Kaiser Family Foundation estimated that 27 percent of the people in the individual market have existing conditions that would have been uninsured before the ACA.

The AHCA eliminates cost sharing and offers a stingier tax credit to defray premium costs, likely resulting in higher overall health costs that may make insurance unaffordable for many people. (The CBO projected that 24 million more people would be without health insurance than under current law by 2026.)

Then, if people get sick, they may suddenly find themselves for a year being priced on their illness if they live in a state that sought a waiver. Depending on the approach taken by a state, some people might find it difficult to keep up their coverage for a full year before they qualify for prices at the community rate.

A big question is whether the funding to cover these folks is adequate. High-risk pools were big money losers and underfunded in the pre-Obamacare days, even though many had restrictions, high premiums and waiting lists. A $5 billion federal pool, established by the ACA as a bridge to the creation of the exchanges in 2013, covered about 100,000 people but was suspended when it ran out of money.

[…]

Avalere Health, a consulting firm, said in an analysis that $23 billion is specifically allocated in the bill for helping people with pre-existing conditions. That would cover about 110,000 people. If states allocated all of the other available funding, that would cover 600,00 people. “Approximately 2.2 million enrollees in the individual market today have some form of pre-existing chronic condition,” the analysis said.

Voted no

Florida

Ileana Ros-Lehtinen

Elected in 1988
@RosLehtinen

Virginia

Barbara Comstock

Elected in 2014
@RepComstock

Washington

Jaime Herrera Beutler

Elected in 2010
@HerreraBeutler

Voted yes

Alabama

Martha Roby

Elected in 2010
@RepMarthaRoby

This is not a “repeal and replace” bill. It does nothing to lower the cost of care. Insurance premiums for the young will go down and premiums for the older will go up. The mandate to have insurance remains in place, as does the state and federal marketplace.

Arizona

Martha McSally

Elected in 2014
@RepMcSally

California

Mimi Walters

Elected in 2014
@RepMimiWalters

This is not a “repeal and replace” bill.

Indiana

Jackie Walorski

Elected in 2012
@RepWalorski

This is not a “repeal and replace” bill.

Susan Brooks

Elected in 2012
@SusanWBrooks

Everything in this statement is false.

Kansas

Lynn Jenkins

Elected in 2008
@RepLynnJenkins

Missouri

Ann Wagner

Elected in 2012
@RepAnnWagner

Vicky Hartzler

Elected in 2010
@RepHartzler

No idea what this means. Mandate to have insurance is retained.

New York

Elise Stefanik

Elected in 2014
@RepStefanik

Claudia Tenney

Elected in 2016
@claudiatenney

This is not true; individuals are still required to have insurance. The penalty is a surcharge to the insurance company. Coverage for pre-existing conditions will become more expensive.

North Carolina

Virginia Foxx

Elected in 2004
@virginiafoxx

“… offer working families greater access to affordable health coverage …”

The bill does not address access; rates will go down for younger people and up for older people.

South Dakota

Kristi Noem

Elected in 2010
@RepKristiNoem

No idea what this means. Individuals must still buy insurance.

Tennessee

Diane Black

Elected in 2010
@RepDianeBlack

Marsha Blackburn

Elected in 2002
@MarshaBlackburn

It guarantees coverage to Americans with pre-existing conditions … It modernizes and strengthens Medicaid.

The bill cuts Medicaid funding. The bill makes covering pre-existing conditions more expensive.

Texas

Kay Granger

Elected in 1996
@RepKayGranger

Utah

Mia Love

Elected in 2014
@RepMiaLove

This legislation provides many levels of protection for those with pre-existing conditions, while giving states greater flexibility to lower premiums and stabilize the insurance market.

The bill makes covering pre-existing conditions more expensive. States can lower premiums for the young and raise them on the older (5-to-1 instead of the 3-to-1 cap in place now).

Washington

Cathy McMorris Rodgers

Elected in 2004
@cathymcmorris

“The #AHCA protects people with pre-existing conditions” ~ Rep. Rodgers

The bill makes covering pre-existing conditions more expensive.

Wyoming

Liz Cheney

Elected in 2016
@Liz_Cheney