6/25/17 Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) introduced the Better Care Reconciliation Act last week, following seven years of promising the repeal of the Affordable Care Act (ACA, also known as Obamacare) and after weeks of negotiations following the House of Representatives’ passage of the American Health Care Act (H.R. 1628), a bill that the Senate said it could not and would not pass.
The Senate’s legislation, which is different from what the House passed in May, is expected to be voted on in the Senate in the coming days, before senators depart Washington, DC, for the July 4 recess. Following that vote, the Senate and House bills will need to be reconciled before a single bill heads to President Donald Trump’s desk for a signature. Both measures are projected to increase the number of Americans who are uninsured by about 23 million.
Among the defining characteristics of the legislation are provisions to deregulate insurance companies, which would allow them to charge older and sicker Americans more for health insurance, and to eliminate the individual mandate to buy health insurance and the mandate for larger companies (with 50 or more employees) to provide employer-sponsored health coverage.
Ending the individual mandate would undermine the individual insurance market and the Obamacare health care exchanges, while ending the employer mandate would help non-union companies drop coverage to gain an advantage over unionized firms.
Over time, the bill would cripple Medicaid by cutting hundreds of billions of dollars from the federal-state program that covers tens of millions of disabled Americans, poor children and the elderly in nursing homes, a program that was expanded by the ACA to cover more of the working poor. Such a move would force states to deny coverage to millions of low-income Americans.
In addition, the bill would reduce tax credits for health premiums purchased on health care exchanges and repeal virtually all of the taxes on high-income Americans and health insurance companies, all of which helped to fund Obamacare’s expansion of health insurance to more than 20 million American families.
The bill also would give all 50 states the opportunity to drop benefits required by the ACA, such as maternity care, emergency services and mental health treatment. While it retains protections for patients with pre-existing conditions (insurers must accept everyone and charge the same rates), the legislation would allow states to waive insurance requirements. This waiver includes rules governing which benefits must be covered, thereby allowing states to drop coverage on troublesome, expensive conditions. Reducing coverage requirements is a convenient way for lawmakers to promise continued pre-existing conditions protection without actually having to deliver it—insurance companies could simply choose not to cover chronic ailments that afflict millions of Americans.
Enactment of this legislation would result in a massive tax cut for the wealthiest Americans. The only Obamacare tax preserved is the so-called “Cadillac-tax,” an excise tax on health benefits above a certain value that is expected to raise insurance premiums for letter carriers and other middle class workers.
With Senate floor action expected soon, all letter carriers should contact their senators now and urge them to oppose this attack on middle-class workers and their families. Call 888-865-8089 and tell your senators that you will remember who took away health care from millions of working people. (If no one answers, leave a message.)
#wealthcare
This nation is FINISHED. If healthcare is a “right” and everyone has to pitch in to pay for everyone else, then clean housing is a right and so is a “living wage”. How can we let the “poor” starve? Food and basic sustenance is a human right and should be provided “free” from the government. Comfortable electricity and air conditioning should be a right to come with free clean housing. AS soon as we get rid of Trump we can complete our downward spiral. Soon we will all be “equally” poor.
Since 50% of carriers are or were cca’s, Rolando got them raises and benefits. The cca’s have not figured out they would be better off with smaller raises now and a much higher salary after 12 years when they are working the rest of their careers( 18-22 years more) Funny how the nalc tells you to vote down the dump’s healthcare plan but Rolando is very busy selling out retirees by supporting congress to legislate all retirees pay for medicare b at a cost of $3300 now per year. This makes NALC the secondary payer instead of the primary payer, but NALC still collects 73% of the premiums from the usps and 23% of premiums from the retirees, another $4000.xx . Who needs nalc hbp if this passes, it would be better to dump the fehbp and just pickup a medicare advantage plan
How is a retiree supposed to afford a 10% survivors annuity, state and federal taxes , a deduction of $4000 (after tax) for hbp,
Your $20k fers pension just got reduced to about $10k, for a 33 year career.
Don’t even get me started on SS with a age 62 reduction(early option) and reduced another 25% , like my SS stmt says after SS is broke and the gov’t Ponzi scheme can only pay out 75% of promises (ie what it takes in.)
hbp inflation goes up 6% a year compounded and we beg for a !% raise, Rolando must be getting paid as the 3rd board of governor and has one hell of a golden parachute coming to him
People don’t care, they are willing to pay the price.. They dislike the Obama /Clinton gang so much..The support for Black lives matter police haters..Illegal aliens over running the country ?The whole gays rights thing that they are willing to pay more for certain things, don’t you get it? Real Americans want the nonsense to stop…They like the country the way it was..They are the the ones who are willing to sacrifice to make our country better…Thankfully Pres. Trump got elected in the nick of time..pulled us back from the abyss!
With the bs the NALC and the other postal unions are trying to do to postal health benefits, they are world class hypocrites in this article.
Letter carriers vote NO on this horrible contract!
1) Lets see 60% of my social security entitlement embezzled from me because drawing CSRS pension, to mention that Social Security I earned by age 24, before federal service.
2) Lets see my CSRS contributions given back to me pro-rated over 30 years rather than a lump sum, with a annuity reduction.
3) Lets see threats to put me on medicare B, with the measly few dollars I have left after being fleeced by the 60% Windfall Elimination Provision at age 65. With the so called option to keep FEHB plan. Plus the hand being forced at age 65 to take out medicare part D.
4) The 1st $25,000 of social security is exempt from tax’s. As with CSRS their is no exemption, you pay tax’s on your pension right from $0.
5) What little I was counting on in my retirement years for a trailer and a small plot of land, and actual income, because I was a federal employee have been embezzled by congress, senate, executive branch of gov’t.
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They want you groveling in the soup line for everything you need.
These are some mean people over my life.
You got it better than most. Quit whining, over-producer.
The government has no right to mandate individuals or employers to have health coverage. It also does not have the right to force employees to join a union.
Nothing is going to happen until fall. Just a game again.
There are many Postal employees that don’t care if Americans have their health insurance taken away from them! They even don’t care that their Federal Employee SS supplement is to be taken away from them under President Dump’s new budget. All they know is the Dumpster is “going to make America great again”. I know one carrier that voted for Dump because he would make lots of over time. They won’t care until they need the Vaseline for themselves.
Nice thoughts except when you’re from Arkansas and have three of the most right wing people in D.C. supposedly “working” for you. With Tom Cotton and John Boozman, you can call all day, camp out at their office doorstep, protest, scream, run around the U.S. Senate chamber naked or anything else you can think of and you will not get their sympathy, ear, or any part of them. We can only hope the five Senators who are still supposedly against this bill will not be successfully pulled back into the ranks by McConnell, and I can just imagine what kind of dirty underhanded tactics he’s using to try to get them to go his way.
We might as letter carriers, current and former, remember who took away health care from millions, but it’s the millions of Trump/GOP lovers who will support everything that is against theirs and their families’ best interests because they have been led around by the nose too long and believe whatever the GOP shills and politicians tell them to believe without question. There may be a very small handful of people on the right who may finally understand what’s going on but I have no confidence in GOP voters at large to ever admit or even recognize what that evil party has done to them over time. Better by far to suffer, blame something on former President Obama, which is absolutely moronic and refuse to admit being wrong even when it means if they or their spouse or kids get a crippling illness and bankrupt them for life. That is selfish and stupid, and unfortunately they drag the rest of us down with them. I am cynical by nature and while I don’t want people to not call if they live in a state where their Republican Senator might just listen, it’s pathetic that in some red states it’s a waste of time. Every time I write or call the 3rd District Representative Steve Womack, he disagrees with every point I make, Boozman only sends a form letter that says he’ll keep my concerns in mind (yeah, right) and Cotton never responds. So much for representing me.
Don’t worry about telling senators taking away healthcare.our beloved nalc is doing there share by negotiating crappy contracts resulting in higher insurance premiums and pathetic wage increases and then unanimously votes to recommend it.they are afraid to say no to the USPS so I will say it.he’ll no!!!