Tag Archives for Max Richtman

House GOP Leadership Puts its Health Care Proposal on Fast-Track

Published in Woonsocket Call on March 12, 2017

After years of calling for the dismantling of Obama’s signature health care law, the 2010 Affordable Care Act (ACA), dubbed Obamacare, an emboldened GOP controlling both the White House and two chambers of Congress, began legislative efforts to substantially change the way the federal government subsidizes health coverage for millions of Americans and puts the brakes on Medicaid expansion that extended coverage to millions more.

On March 6, House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis), with the blessing of President Donald Trump, began his legislative efforts to enact the House GOP’s 123 page health care proposal, the new American Health Care Act (AHCA). Democratic lawmakers and aging groups charge that the AHCA lacks a fiscal estimate from the bipartisan Congressional Budget Office as to how many people will lose their health insurance coverage as a result of the bill or how much it will cost.”

According to rating agency S&P Global Ratings, between 6 million and 10 million people could lose health insurance coverage if the GOP’s health care proposal to “repeal and replace” Obamacare passes. Specifically, there would be a decline in enrollment in the individual health insurance plan market of between 2 million and 4 million people. There would also be a decline of between 4 million and 6 million people in the nation’s Medicaid system after 2020 to 2024, says the recently released analysis.

GOP Health Proposal on Fast-Track

Just hours after AHCA was introduced early in the week, the House Energy and Commerce Committee and Ways and Means Committee began holding markups on their specific portions of the GOP’s health care proposal. After deliberating for almost 18 hours the Ways and Means approved its portion by a vote of 23-16, along party lines. After a marathon 27-hour markup session, the AHCA proposal was approved by the second House panel, Energy and Commerce Committee, by voted 31 to 23, by party line, too. Next week, the House Budget and Rules committees is expected to take up the GOP health care proposal, with a full House floor scheduled for the week of March 20. It has been reported that Ryan hopes to have a bill to President Trump for signature before April recess.

“Obamacare is rapidly collapsing. Skyrocketing premiums, soaring deductibles, and dwindling choices are not what the people were promised seven years ago. It’s time to turn a page and rescue our health care system from this disastrous law,” said House Speaker Ryan in a statement released when AHCA was thrown into the legislative hopper.

Ryan asserted that the GOP health care proposal would “drive down costs, encourage competition, and give every American access to quality, affordable health insurance. It protects young adults, patients with pre-existing conditions, and provides a stable transition so that no one has the rug pulled out from under them.”

The GOP health care proposal would keep two of the most popular provisions of Obama’s ACA, specifically providing health care coverage to people with pre-existing conditions (though insurers would be allowed to charge higher premiums to individuals with lapsed health care coverage) and allowing children to stay on their parents’ health plans until the age of 26.

But, the GOP’s efforts to repeal and replace Obama Care has brought aging groups together to put the brakes on House passage.

Aging Groups Come Out Swinging

Seniors’ advocates object to the ACHA’s impact on federal programs that provide both healthcare and long-term care to retirees. The bill rescinds an 0.9% tax on upper income earners’ wages, which had been used to extend the solvency of Medicare until 2028. Removing the tax decreases Medicare’s solvency by four years, which could lead to benefit cuts down the road. Advocates also decry the age-rating provisions in the repeal bill, which would allow insurers to charge older Americans up to five times as much for premiums as younger enrollees pay. The $4,000 tax credits for near seniors (aged 50-64) which replace Obamacare subsidies won’t make a dent in the premiums that this age group will pay under the GOP plan. Older Americans who can’t afford insurance will then arrive at the threshold of Medicare less healthy, putting additional strain on the system.

“This legislation is a triple whammy for seniors. It’s bad for Medicare beneficiaries, bad for near seniors, and bad for the Medicare program,” says Max Richtman, President and CEO of the Washington, D.C.-based National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare.”

Richmond is especially alarmed that the AHCA also makes radical changes to the Medicaid program. The bill cuts $370 billion from Medicaid over 10 years by imposing “per capita caps,” meaning that states will get a fixed federal payment per beneficiary instead of the guaranteed match they now receive. Those fixed payments will not be able to keep pace with rising healthcare costs, leaving the states with significant shortfalls. “Millions of seniors rely on Medicaid for skilled nursing care, both in the home and at community-based facilities. The cut in federal payments will compel states to remove seniors from Medicaid rolls or radically reduce benefits, forcing them and their families into poverty.”

Following the release of the GOP’s AHCA, the Washington, D.C.-based AARP, the nation’s largest advocacy group representing over 37 million members, came out swinging. The GOP legislative proposal would weaken Medicare, leaving the door open to a voucher program that shifts costs and risks to seniors, warned AARP Executive Vice President Nancy LeaMond in a statement.

“Before people even reach retirement age, big insurance companies would be allowed to charge them an age tax that adds up to thousands of dollars more per year. Older Americans need affordable health care services and prescriptions. This plan goes in the opposite direction, increasing insurance premiums for older Americans and not doing anything to lower drug costs, noted LeaMond.

LeaMond charged, “On top of the hefty premium increase for consumers, big drug companies and other special interests get a sweetheart deal. “Finally, Medicaid cuts could impact people of all ages and put at risk the health of 17.4 million children and adults with disabilities and seniors by eliminating much needed services that allow individuals to live independently in their homes and communities.”

“Although no one believes the current health care system is perfect, this harmful legislation would make health care less secure and less affordable,” says LeaMond, noting that her nonprofit aging group will work with either political party to hammer out a health plan that “puts Americans’ health care first, not the special interests.”

Adds Judith Stein, executive director of the Center for Medicare Advocacy in a statement, “the proposed AHCA would also gut key financing mechanisms of the Affordable Care Act that would amount to tax cuts for the wealthy – by some estimates, by hundreds of billions of dollars. Regrettably, these tax cuts include provisions that would jeopardize Medicare’s financial stability. “We fear such cuts will lead to renewed calls to ‘save’ Medicare by privatizing it for future generations,” says Stein.

According to the Center for Medicare Advocacy’s statement, the proposed GOP legislative proposal would dismantle key structural supports of ACA, including eliminating the employer coverage mandate and the individual mandate to obtain health coverage, and instead would impose a 30 percent penalty for lapses in coverage. Instead of the ACA’s subsidies that make health coverage more affordable for millions, the new legislation would offer age-based tax credits ranging from about $2,000 to $4,000 – likely insufficient to pay for meaningful insurance coverage.

The Medicare Advocacy Group also warns that older Americans needing health insurance coverage before becoming Medicare eligible would also be hit hard by the proposed AHCA. The ACA’s protection of older adults that prevents insurance companies from charging no more than three times the premium amount charged of younger individuals (a 3:1 ratio) would be replaced by a higher 5:1 ratio – this dramatically increasing the premium amount insurance companies can charge older adults. Critics call this change an “age tax.”

Finally, the Republican’s AHCA would also phase out ACA’s expansion of Medicaid starting in 2020, structurally reforming virtually the entire Medicaid program (including Medicaid expansion). These changes would have a devastating impact on providing health care by capping federal Medicaid payments to each state to a limited, preset amount per person (often referred to as a “Per Capita Cap”).

Could Political Backlash Happen with Passage of AHCA?

Last Thursday, Ryan, with sleeves rolled up, urged GOP lawmakers to back AHCA, promising tweaks to address Republican conservatives’ concerns. At the 23 minute news conference, Ryan said: “This is the closest we’ve been to repealing and replacing Obamacare and it’s the closest we will ever get to repealing and replacing Obamacare.” It is either voting for the House bill, or let ACA survive, he said.

President Trump also chimed in to the AHCA debate, too, by calling for the controversial health care proposal’s enactment in an afternoon tweet. “Despite what you hear in the press, health care is coming along great. We are talking to many groups and it will end in a beautiful picture!,” he tweeted.

As the Congressional April recess approaches opposition to AHCA is building as physician, nurse and hospital groups warn that the legislative proposal’s enactment will take health care coverage away from millions of Americans. While Democratic and progressive organizations oppose ACA’s passage, too, a growing number of GOP lawmakers and conservative groups, from the Cato Institute, Americans for Prosperity and Tea Party Patriots, are expressing their concerns.

Days ago, Andrev Ostrovskv, chief medical officer for Medicaid at the Baltimore, Maryland-based Centers for Medicare and Medicaid based, risking the wrath of Trump’s political appointees in his federal agency, tweeted his displeasure and opposition. “Despite political messaging from others at HHS [Health and Human Services], I align with the experts from @aafp @AmerAcadPeds @AmerMedicalAssn in opposition to #AHCA,” he tweeted. Dr. Ostrovskv’s agency oversees the administering of Obamacare.

Even if the GOP House Leadership are able to address conservative lawmaker concerns, one being AHCA does not require an earlier halt to Medicaid expansion enrollment, the GOP’s health care proposal appears to have a rocky road to travel in the upper chamber. Senate. Republications, having just a 52-48 slim majority, can only lose two votes.

Says Senator Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas) in a tweet to House GOP Leadership: “ House health-care bill can’t pass Senate w/o major changes. To my friends in House: pause, start over. Get it right, don’t get it fast.”

With the popularity of Obamacare the GOP’s death wish to repeal and replace the law may well be hazardous to the Republican Party’s political health. We’ll find out for sure in the mid-term elections.

Search on for GOP Senators to Protect Medicare

Published in Woonsocket Call on January 29, 2017

Since President Donald Trump took the oath of office on January 20, he is making good on some of his hundreds of campaign promises. During his first week in office Trump signed three executive orders declaring new government policies and eight presidential memoranda detailing the priorities of his new administration.

But, for aging groups, with Trumps arrival in Washington, D.C, the skirmish officially begins to protect Medicare in this new session of Congress.

With Trump and Congressional Republican Leadership on record for their support of repealing the 2010 Affordable Care Act, popularly known as Obamacare, President and CEO Max Richtman, of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare (NCPSSM), clearly sees the writing on the wall. If successful, Richtman warns that GOP legislative actions will severely damage Medicare impacting 57 million seniors and disabled adults who rely on the program for their health care.

Building A Firewall Against Privatizing Medicare

With the GOP holding a slim majority of the U.S. Senate seats, 52 to the Democrats 48 seats, Richtman sees swaying Republican Senators away from their party’s position on privatizing Medicare to protect the federal health care program.

On January 24, 2017, Richtman urged Senator John McCain (R-AZ), Senator Susan Collins (R-ME), Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA), and Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN) to be the Senate’s “firewall against Medicare cuts.” His correspondence asked them to vote against proposals to privatize Medicare, raise the Medicare eligibility age from 65 to 67, and repeal provisions in the Affordable Care Act (ACA), President Barack Obama’s landmark health care law, that provided additional benefits to beneficiaries.

Richtman reminded the GOP Senators that the Affordable Care Act (ACA) improved Medicare benefits and extended the solvency of the Part A Hospital Insurance Trust Fund by more than a decade. ACA’s closing of the prescription drug donut hole has put money into the pockets of Medicare beneficiaries. The health care law also added coverage of an annual wellness visit and eliminated copays for preventive services like cancer screenings, he said.

“I am also troubled by “premium support” [GOP] proposals to privatize Medicare,” says Richtman. According the aging advocate who was a former staff director of the U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging and a 16-year veteran of Capitol Hill, under previous privatization plans, beneficiaries would not enroll in the current program; rather, they would receive a capped payment or voucher to be used to purchase private health insurance or traditional Medicare. Private plans would have to provide benefits that are at least actuarially equivalent to the benefit package provided by fee-for-service Medicare, but they could manipulate their plans to attract the youngest and healthiest seniors. This would leave traditional Medicare with older and sicker beneficiaries whose higher health costs would lead to higher premiums that they and others may be unable or unwilling to afford, reducing the fee for service risk pool even further resulting in a death spiral for traditional Medicare.

GOP Medicare Fix Financially Hurts Beneficiaries

Richtman also told the GOP Senators that NCPSSM opposed the raising of the Medicare eligibility age from age 65 to 67 because the proposal would increase costs for millions of older Americans. Absent the guarantees in the existing ACA, such as requiring insurance companies to cover people with pre-existing medical conditions and limiting age rating, millions of seniors 65 and 66 without Medicare would find private insurance unaffordable. Raising the eligibility age would also increase average costs for Medicare as younger, healthier seniors are eliminated from the risk pool and costs are spread across an older, less-healthy population, he says.

Richtman urged the GOP Senators to oppose efforts underway in the 115th Congress to block grant Medicaid, cap Medicaid payments on a per-beneficiary basis (per capita caps) and/or repeal the ACA’s Medicaid expansion. He noted that these policy changes would “financially hurt states and lead to states cutting services, quality and eligibility for the most vulnerable of our senior population.”

Many seniors would not be able to absorb the loss of coverage and increase in their costs that would occur if these proposals became law. In fact, half of all Medicare beneficiaries in 2014 had incomes below $24,150 and Medicare households spent over two times more than the average American household on out-of-pocket health care costs,” he says.

“If Senate Democrats stand strong, we only need a handful of Republicans to protect the commitment to Medicare,” says Richtman. “We hope Senators McCain, Collins, Grassley, and Alexander to do the right thing for seniors in their states – and across America.”

Richtman correspondence to the four GOP Senators is part of NCPSSM’s pro-active legislative strategy to protect the existing Medicare program. The letters sent quantify the economic impact that proposed Medicare cuts would have on seniors in the four GOP Senators’ states: Arizona (with 1.3 million beneficiaries), Maine (306,000 beneficiaries), Iowa (nearly 572,000 beneficiaries), and Tennessee (1.2 million beneficiaries).

“We know that these four Republican Senators have the wisdom and judgment to protect seniors in their states from legislation that would impose painful Medicare cuts,” says Richtman. “It’s time to slam the brakes on any attempts to pass harmful legislation.”

Senate Democrats Attempt to Block HHS Nomination

Two days before Trump was sworn in as president, the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee held confirmation hearing on Rep. Tom Price, (R-Ga), Trump’s nominee to oversee the Department of Health and Human Services, the federal agency that oversees the Medicare program. In confirmed, he is expected to play a key role in the GOP’s efforts to privatize Medicare.

No formal vote was taken at the HELP Committee hearing but the Congressman is scheduled to testify a week later at the Senate Finance Committee, which will vote on his nomination.

During the four-hour heated confirmation hearing, held in 430 Dirksen Senate Office Building, HHS nominee Price dodged questions lobbed by Democrats about the Trump Administrations position on the future of Medicare. They also zeroed in on his personal financial investments in health care companies, calling them conflicts of interest which the denied.

Price, an orthopedic surgeon and a six term congressman, considered to be one of the most vocal critics of Obamacare on Capitol Hill, is expected play a key role in the GOP’s efforts to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act.

Rhode Island Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, sitting on the HELP Committee, gave this take on Price after the first of two confirmation hearings: “Price hasn’t been able to win Democratic support for any of his health care legislation [in the House] and today confirmed that he and his allies have no plan that can win support from across the aisle or the millions of Americans who would be affected by tearing down the Affordable Care Act. He conceded that he should not stop Americans under twenty-six from staying on their parents’ insurance, re-open the dreaded prescription drug doughnut hole for seniors, deny coverage to those with pre-existing conditions, and reinstate lifetime limits on care. But he has no plan to make that happen.”

Adds Whitehouse, “Price also failed to reassure the Rhode Islanders I serve who rely on Medicare for their care. He has fought to voucherize the program, which would gradually unload costs onto seniors while eroding their benefits. He needed to tell the American people they could depend on him to faithfully administer Medicare and keep the sacred promise we’ve made to our seniors of a dignified retirement with access to good health care. He did not.”

“Congress must protect Social Security and Medicare, but many Republicans see the latest election results as an opportunity to hollow out these vital programs. President Trump’s pick to oversee Medicare has long championed efforts to privatize Medicare, which I strongly oppose. Cutting benefits and privatizing these programs could hurt millions of Americans and harm our economy,” said Sen. Jack Reed, noting that these programs reduce poverty and improve public health in ways that benefit all Americans.

As NCPSSM’s Richtman continues his effort to sway GOP Senators, rallying the troops at the state-level may well be the path to blocking GOP attempts to privatize Medicare. Voters in states with Republican Senators must send this message to their elected official, “don’t touch my Medicare.” Let the movement to strengthen Medicare in these states begin today.

Republicans Begin a Legislative Assault on Social Security

Published in Woonsocket Call on December 11, 2016

With the dust just settling after last month’s heated presidential 2016 election, the GOP took over the White House and maintained control of both chambers of Congress. With almost 40 days left before Obama leaves office, an emboldened GOP calls for the repeal of Obmacare and the privatization of Medicare. That said, fixing Social Security is now on their short list of domestic policies to address.

Last Thursday, the long-anticipated political skirmish over how to reform and ensure the fiscal solvency of Social Security began with Ways and Means Social Security Subcommittee Chairman Sam Johnson (TX-03) introducing legislation to drastically overhaul the nation’s most popular social insurance program.

In the Eyes of the Beholder

“For years I’ve talked about the need to fix Social Security so that our children and grandchildren can count on it to be there for them just like it’s there for today’s seniors and individuals with disabilities,” Johnson said in his statement introducing H.R. 6439, the Social Security Reform Act of 2016. “My commonsense plan is the start of a fact-based conversation about how we do just that. I urge my colleagues to also put pen to paper and offer their ideas about how they would save Social Security for generations to come,” he said.

Johnson’s legislative proposal seeks to overhaul the nation’s Social Security program by increasing the retirement age from 67 to 69, this change impacting people born in 1968 who will begin retiring in the mid-2030s. The basic Social Security benefit formula would also become less generous for beneficiaries… except for the poorest beneficiaries. The annual cost-of-living adjustment (COLA), using a Chained-Weighted CPI, would put the brakes on generous COLA increases. COLA’s would be cut for those earning over $85,000.

Circling the Wagons to Protect Social Security

Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi came out swing in a statement after Johnson’s threw his bill into the legislative hopper, charging that it would “inflict deep cuts in Social Security benefits.”

“Apparently nothing upsets House Republicans like the idea of hard-working people getting to enjoy a secure and dignified retirement. While Speaker Ryan sharpens his knives for Medicare, Chairman Johnson’s bill is an alarming sign that Republicans are greedily eying devastating cuts to Americans’ Social Security benefits as well,” Pelosi said.

She warned, “Although current retirees and those close to retirement will receive their Social Security benefits, changes are looming with a Trump administration and a Republican-controlled Congress. For younger generations all benefit cut options are expected to be put on the table.”

Rhode Island Congressman David Cicilline calls Johnson’s legislative proposal a “travesty,” warning that it would “destroy Social Security as we know it by slashing the critical benefits that millions of seniors rely on to live their retirement years with dignity.”

According to Cicilline, the last time Republicans tried to eliminate Social Security during the Administration of President George W. Bush, the American people were outraged and rejected it.”

Max Richtman, President and CEO of the Washington-based National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare views Johnson’s Social Security fix legislation introduced as the 114th Congress is wrapping up, “the first salvo in the ‘War on the Working Class.’”

Rep. Johnson will no doubt re-introduce his bill in the next Congress, he predicts.

According to Richtman, Johnson’s legislative proposal cuts Social Security benefits by one third while raising the retirement age from 67 to 69. It seeks to control costs by changing the benefit-computation formula in a way that cuts benefit amounts. Finally, it cuts COLAs, too.

Richtman charges that this Social Security reform proposal would “irreparably harm the nearly 60 million Americans who currently depend on Social Security as well as future beneficiaries.”

“President-elect Trump will have a veto pen. Now is the time for Mr. Trump to re-affirm his campaign promise “not to touch” Social Security and Medicare. So far, he has been uncharacteristically silent on this vital issue. I promise that we will hold him accountable,” says Richtman.

“No one voted for massive cuts to Social Security, nor to end the program as we know it,” says Nancy Altman, founding co-director of Social Security Works, in a response to Johnson’s legislative proposal to radically change Social Security. “The Johnson plan would gradually but inexorably turn Social Security from a program that replaces wages to one that produces essentially one flat benefit, independent of how much a worker contributed,” she says.

“With Republicans in full control of the federal government, these cuts have a real chance of being passed into law. Trump needs to immediately reassure the American people that he will keep his campaign promise and veto this awful bill. He should tweet that immediately,” adds Altman.

The presidential debates and the platforms of the GOP and Democratic party reveal a stark difference as how to each party will fix the ailing Social Security program. Now is not the time to put Social Security on the chopping block. Congress must come together to hammer out bipartisan approaches to ensure the fiscal solvency for the next 100 years. .