115th Congress defunds ACA: Senate: 51-48 House:227-198; Executive Order signed 1/20

[tru_m.a.c]

S.Con.Res.3 - A concurrent resolution setting forth the congressional budget for the United States Government for fiscal year 2017 and setting forth the appropriate budgetary levels for fiscal years 2018 through 2026.

S.Con.Res.3 - 115th Congress (2017-2018): A concurrent resolution setting forth the congressional budget for the United States Government for fiscal year 2017 and setting forth the appropriate budgetary levels for fiscal years 2018 through 2026.

There is one summary for S.Con.Res.3. Bill summaries are authored by CRS.

Shown Here:
Introduced in Senate (01/03/2017)
Establishes the congressional budget for the federal government for FY2017 and sets forth budgetary levels for FY2018-FY2026.

Recommends levels and amounts for FY2017-FY2026 in both houses of Congress for:

• federal revenues,
• new budget authority,
• budget outlays,
• deficits,
• public debt,
• debt held by the public, and
• the major functional categories of spending.

Recommends levels and amounts for FY2017-FY2026 in the Senate for Social Security and Postal Service discretionary administrative expenses.

Includes reconciliation instructions directing the Senate Finance Committee; and the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee to each submit deficit reduction legislation to the Senate Budget Committee by January 27, 2017.

Includes reconciliation instructions directing the House Energy and Commerce Committee and the House Ways and Means Committee to each submit deficit reduction legislation to the House Budget Committee by January 27, 2017.

(Under the Congressional Budget Act of 1974, reconciliation bills are considered by Congress using expedited legislative procedures that prevent a filibuster and restrict amendments in the Senate.)

Establishes: (1) a deficit-neutral reserve fund for health care legislation, and (2) a reserve fund for health care legislation. (The reserve funds provide the chairmen of the congressional budget committees with flexibility in applying budget enforcement rules to health care legislation that meets specified criteria. Under the reserve funds, the chairmen may revise committee allocations, aggregates and other appropriate levels in this resolution, and the pay-as-you-go [PAYGO] ledger in the Senate.)






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The Parliamentary Tactic That Could Obliterate Obamacare

WASHINGTON — Republicans hope to repeal major parts of the Affordable Care Act using an expedited procedure known as budget reconciliation.

The process is sometimes called arcane, but it has been used often in the past 35 years to write some of the nation’s most important laws. “Reconciliation is probably the most potent budget enforcement tool available to Congress for a large portion of the budget,” the Congressional Research Service, a nonpartisan arm of Congress, has said.

Here is a primer.

Q. What is the budget reconciliation process?

A. It is a way for Congress to speed action on legislation that changes taxes or spending, especially spending for entitlement programs like Medicare and Medicaid. Although conceived primarily as a way to reduce federal budget deficits, it has also been used to cut taxes and to create programs that increase spending — changes that can raise deficits.

In the Senate, a reconciliation bill can ordinarily be passed with a simple majority. For other bills, a 60-vote majority is often needed to limit debate and move to a final vote.

Q. Why is it called reconciliation?

A. The term originated in the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974, which was intended to give Congress more control over the budget process by allowing lawmakers to set overall levels of spending and revenue.

The process begins with a budget blueprint, a resolution that guides Congress but is not presented to the president for a signature or veto. It recommends federal revenue, deficit, debt and spending levels in areas like defense, energy, education and health care.

The resolution may direct one or more committees to develop legislation to achieve specified budgetary results. By adopting these proposals, Congress can change existing laws so that actual revenue and spending are brought into line with — reconciled with — policies in the budget resolution.

Q. How has reconciliation been used?

A. Since 1980, Congress has completed action on 24 budget reconciliation bills. Twenty became law. Four were vetoed.

The Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1981 was a vehicle for much of the “Reagan revolution.” It squeezed savings out of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, the school lunch program, farm subsidies, student loans, welfare and jobless benefits, among many other programs.

In 1996, Congress reversed six decades of social welfare policy, eliminating the individual entitlement to cash assistance for the nation’s poorest children and giving each state a lump sum of federal money with vast discretion over its use. Those changes were made in a reconciliation bill, pushed by Republicans but signed by President Bill Clinton.

Congress reduced deficits with another reconciliation bill, the Balanced Budget Act of 1997. That law also created the Children’s Health Insurance Program, primarily for uninsured children in low-income families. On the same day in 1997, Mr. Clinton signed a separate reconciliation bill that cut taxes.

The Bush tax cuts were adopted in reconciliation bills signed by President George W. Bush in 2001 and 2003.

On several occasions, Congress has increased assistance to low-income working families by increasing the earned-income tax credit in reconciliation bills.

Congress also made changes to the Affordable Care Act in a reconciliation bill passed immediately after President Obama signed the health care overhaul in 2010. Later, when Republicans controlled both houses of Congress, they passed a reconciliation bill to eviscerate the Affordable Care Act, but Mr. Obama vetoed the bill in January 2016.

Republicans say that measure will provide a template or starting point for their efforts to undo the health care law this year, with support from President-elect Donald J. Trump, who calls the law “an absolute disaster.”

Q. How does the reconciliation process work in the Senate?

A. In the House, leaders of the majority party can usually control what happens if their members stick together. In the Senate, by contrast, one member or a handful of senators can often derail the leaders’ plans. The reconciliation process enhances the power of the majority party and its leaders. Senate debate on a reconciliation bill is normally limited to 20 hours, so it cannot be filibustered on the Senate floor.

The Senate has a special rule to prevent abuse of the budget reconciliation process. The rule, named for former Senator Robert C. Byrd, Democrat of West Virginia, generally bars use of the procedure to consider legislation that has no effect on spending, taxes and deficits. The Senate parliamentarian normally decides whether particular provisions violate the Byrd rule, but the Senate can waive the rule with a 60-vote majority.

Q. What does this mean for the Affordable Care Act?

A. Republicans hope to use the fast-track procedure of budget reconciliation to repeal or nullify provisions of the law that affect spending and taxes. They could, for example, eliminate penalties imposed on people who go without insurance and on larger employers who do not offer coverage to employees.

They could use a reconciliation bill to eliminate tens of billions of dollars provided each year to states that have expanded eligibility for Medicaid. And they could use it to repeal subsidies for private health insurance coverage obtained through the public marketplaces known as exchanges.

Republicans could also repeal a number of taxes and fees imposed on certain high-income people and on health insurers and manufacturers of brand-name prescription drugs and medical devices: tax increases that help offset the cost of the insurance coverage expansions.

Those provisions were all rolled back in the reconciliation bill Mr. Obama vetoed last January. That bill did not touch insurance market standards established in the Affordable Care Act, which do not directly cost the government money or raise taxes. The standards stipulate, for example, that insurers cannot deny coverage or charge higher premiums because of a person’s pre-existing conditions. Insurers must allow parents to keep children on their policies until the age of 26, and they cannot charge women higher rates than men, as they often did in the past.

Such provisions are politically popular, but it is not clear how they could remain in force without the coverage expansions that help insurers afford such regulations. Without an effective requirement for people to carry insurance, and without subsidies, supporters of the health law say many healthy people would go without coverage, knowing they could obtain it if they became ill and needed it.

Democrats say they will fight to preserve the law after Mr. Obama leaves office. Recent history shows that lobbying and public pressure can sometimes make a difference, altering the votes of individual lawmakers and changing the contents of a reconciliation bill.

http://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/04/us/politics/the-parliamentary-trick-that-could-obliterate-obamacare.html?utm_campaign=KHN:+Daily+Health+Policy+Report&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=40059765&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-9DX00Wz4S9AJmLuoWoOby3GDtyzFEaG44Zrh5t4iBW1mqX6tOsGSyWj0rnx8TD2i34UKslQV6uHs_FJEO01Fx32Ot_3w&_hsmi=40059765

 

[tru_m.a.c]

Senate Republicans just introduced an Obamacare repeal plan Democrats can’t stop

The new Congress was sworn in on Tuesday, and the first thing it did was prepare to repeal Obamacare.

Senate Budget Committee Chair Michael Enzi (R-WY) introduced a budget resolutionTuesday that includes "reconciliation instructions" that enable Congress to repeal Obamacare with a simple Senate majority. Passing a budget resolution that includes those instructions will mean that the legislation can pass through the budget reconciliation process, in which bills cannot be filibustered.

That means Republicans will only need 50 of their 52 members in the Senate, and a bare majority in the House, to pass legislation repealing the Affordable Care Act. According to the Wall Street Journal, the budget resolution could be passed by both houses as early as next week.

To be clear, passing the budget resolutions does not itself repeal Obamacare. But it’s the necessary first step if Republicans are to do that this year, and unless three or more Republican senators defect (or 24 House members do), it’ll be smooth sailing for the repeal effort from there on out.

Donald Trump has not yet taken office. But make no mistake: Congress is already starting to enact his, and the Republican Party’s, agenda, and Democrats don’t have the votes to stop it.

Senate Republicans just introduced an Obamacare repeal plan Democrats can’t stop

U.S. Republican senator introduces Obamacare repeal resolution

 

[David_TheMan]

thank god.
Please let this go through

 

[Dr. Acula]

Debbie Mills
I'm hoping that they don't, ’cause, I mean, what would they do then? Would this go away? I mean, I mean, will the insurance? It will go away?

They should interview this woman again

This Trump voter didn't think Trump was serious about repealing her health insurance

 

[tru_m.a.c]

thank god.
Please let this go through

Care to explain why?

 

[hashmander]

Care to explain why?

it's unfair to people who were doing fine under the old way. fukk the sick.

 

[David_TheMan]

Care to explain why?

Obamacare and the Romneycare (heritage neo con concoction) that it copies is nothing more than a backdoor government handout to businesses, that actually destroys the market. It has taken providers out the market, run up price of insurance, run up price of medicine all because of government subsidization and selling the ignorant rubes of the US on the concept that there is a such thing as a free lunch.

I hope it is competely dismantled and a actual market oriented solution can be implemented, which means Ryan must be far away from developing a solution.

The benefit, lower insurance premiums, more market competition for insurance, which leads to better service as well.

 

[88m3]

people are better off without health insurance




don't be surprised when the next wave of hospitals close

 

[Worthless Loser]

people are better off without health insurance




don't be surprised when the next wave of hospitals close

So women and children are better off without health insurance?

 

[ChatGPT-5]

They'd be committing political suicide if they dared.

 

[88m3]

So women and children are better off without health insurance?

completely being sarcastic I guess I missed my mark...

 

[88m3]

They'd be committing political suicide if they dared.

they feel they have a consensus


they're not going to replace it either they have no plan, shades of Brexit and what not

 

[Dr. Acula]

They'd be committing political suicide if they dared.

They will go for "repeal and replace' which means they will kick the can down the road for 3 years or so.

Its a purely politically shrewd move. The "repeal" news will go through the news when it first happens. However, there will be no real repeal at that moment.

They are hoping that by the time the actually repeal kicks in, people will stop paying attention. They are right.

 

[Worthless Loser]

Does anyone think if this is successfully implemented, it will backfire and lead to the Democrats winning back majority in the senate during the next senate elections?

 

[Mr swag]

Rand paul said he will not vote for it. they need two more republicans.

maybe snow from maine might be next. then they will need one more