Issues: Health Care

Sanders Questions: Anyone Thirsty? Edition

Donald Trump has returned from Asia, and with him returns everyone’s favorite part of the day: asking Sarah Huckabee Sanders questions she’ll do her best to ignore.

Unfortunately for Team Trump, while he was gone Americans learned all about what the disastrous Republican tax plan will do to the middle class, healthcare, the deficit, American jobs…we could go on.

American Bridge Trump War Room Communications Director Harrell Kirstein hopes she’s got her water bottle cap unscrewed and calls on White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders to answer the following questions:

1. Why is Donald Trump going back on his promise to bring back American jobs by supporting a tax package that would encourage corporations to send jobs out of the United States?

2. Following up on that, does he have anything to say to the 36 million middle class Americans whose taxes will go up under his tax plan?

3. Why did President Trump […]

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Economic Experts: To help 1%, Senate Republican tax plan would cost over 13 million Americans health care

24 hours after Senate Republicans added repeal of the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate to their tax plan – in order to finance corporate tax cuts that overwhelmingly benefit the wealthiest Americans – economic experts are making clear that this would have devastating costs for the middle class.

To permanently cut taxes for big business, Senate Republicans would take healthcare coverage from 13 million Americans, send health insurance markets into chaos, and cause premiums to skyrocket across the board.

On top of these new medical and financial burdens for hardworking Americans, former Obama Administration economic adviser David Kamin explains that, in 2027, $30 billion of corporate tax cuts would be paid for by raising taxes on everyone EXCEPT the richest 1% of Americans.

This comes as Republican Senators are openly admitting that they are rushing to pass this tax bill to please big money donors.

Center on Budget and […]

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RESEARCH FILE: Top pharmaceutical lobbyist Alex Azar will help Trump further sabotage Obamacare, attack women’s reproductive rights

American Bridge Vice President Shripal Shah released the following statement on Donald Trump’s announcement that he will nominate Alex Azar to serve as Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services:

“Donald Trump is already sabotaging Obamacare – needlessly raising healthcare costs for American families all over the country – and failing to stand-up to rising drug prices like he promised.  Now he’s tapping a former pharmaceutical company lobbyist to help him do more damage at HHS.  For anyone concerned about health care access, affordability, and women’s reproductive rights, this administration has been a disaster from the start and now appears poised to get even worse.”

To read American Bridge’s full research file on Azar, please click HERE.

If Azar is confirmed by the Senate, it will mean that the Trump Administration has, in contradiction of Trump’s repeated pledge to “drain the swamp,” hired at least 189 former […]

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Editorial Roundup: “If True” Edition

The Trump administration was again rocked by a series of negative editorials from newspapers across the country this week, as they planned to raise taxes on the middle class to give wealthy people like Trump a tax cut, refused to act to prevent mass shootings like the tragedy in Texas, and wouldn’t demand Roy Moore drop out of the Alabama Senate race following revelations he’d made sexual advances on underage girls.

Here’s what Americans read this week in their local newspapers:

11/3

Asbury Park Press: GOP Tax Reform Plan Works — For The Rich

House Republicans revealed their tax “reform” plan on Thursday, the one President Trump has never tired of telling us will be really, really terrific — maybe the best idea in the history of American history. He is, of course, spectacularly wrong.

This is a colossal mess, a wildly ill-conceived handout to the wealthy […]

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Editorial Roundup: Release All The Records Edition!

Last week, while Congressional Republicans sided with banks and credit companies over their own constituents, and San Juan Mayor Cruz fought with Whitefish Energy, Donald Trump reiterated his support for Ed Gillespie, reversed his stance multiple times on 401(k)s, and tried to obstruct a teenager from obtaining an abortion.

 

Editorial boards across the country criticized Trump for his ACA sabotage, Trump’s Opioid epidemic response, echoed the criticisms of former Presidents and Republican Senators, and more. Here’s what Americans read this week in their local newspapers:

 

10/20

 

Burlington Free Press: For The President, It’s Donald Trump First

 

The real danger of Trump’s performance in office is that Americans become so numb to the president’s outrageous behavior that they are unable to recognize the erosion of democracy taking place in plain sight.

 

The president sucks the air out of the news cycle with erratic tweets, sudden position reversals and […]

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Donald Trump Lied When He Promised To Combat The Opioid Crisis

Despite promising repeatedly over the past 77 days to declare the opioid crisis a national emergency, Donald Trump is again failing to deliver today. Declaring a national emergency would have made additional funding and resources available to the federal and state governments to fight the opioid crisis.  Instead, Trump is announcing a narrower set of bureaucratic changes with no additional funding.  

“More than  6,000 Americans  have died from opioid overdoses during the 77 days since Donald Trump pledged to declare the opioid epidemic a national emergency,” said American Bridge Vice President Shripal Shah.  “The President has made it to the golf course nearly every weekend during those 77 days, but hasn’t found time to deliver on his promise to mobilize resources at the state and federal level to prevent further deaths.  Ten months in, Trump’s administration is a disgraceful series of broken promises on nearly every topic.” 

This latest stall by the […]

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As ​Donald Trump Sabotages ​the ACA​, Uninsured Rate Has Increased ​

American Bridge spokesperson Andrew Bates released the following statement after the latest Gallup and Sharecare survey determined that the number of Americans without insurance has sharply increased during 2017. This took place as Donald Trump acted to sabotage the Affordable Care Act (ACA) after taking office:

“At the end of last year, a record amount of the American people had health coverage thanks to the Affordable Care Act. Now, after Donald Trump’s attempts to ‘blow up’ the health insurance marketplaces with behind-the-back, politically-motivated sabotage of the ACA, Americans are losing their insurance at an alarming rate and premiums are increasing by as much as 30%.  Republicans have to quickly embrace the bipartisan Senate deal to stop this pain, or they will be held accountable by their constituents.”

A wide range of independent medical experts, as well as the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, have found that Trump Administration policies have undermined the […]

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Trump’s sabotage of the Affordable Care Act increases premium costs for North Carolinians 

BlueCross BlueShield of North Carolina has announced that it will increase the average premiums for Affordable Care Act marketplace plans by an average of 14.1% in 2018, citing the Trump Administration’s failure to pay cost-sharing reductions that are vital for lowering out-of-pocket costs paid by working people.

Numerous healthcare experts and patient advocacy organizations, including the American Cancer Society, have called for Congress to ensure that these payments resume to reduce premiums.

“Plain and simple, if Donald Trump had not cut-off cost-sharing payments in order to sabotage the Affordable Care Act, premiums on the individual market would barely go up at all in North Carolina next year,” said American Bridge spokesperson Andrew Bates. ​”​Republicans representing North Carolina in Congress should stand-up to Donald Trump and support the bipartisan compromise deal put forward by Senators of both parties so that North Carolinians don’t suffer the needless economic pain […]

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BREAKING: Trump and Ryan oppose bipartisan ACA compromise, instead continue their sabotage of health insurance markets

American Bridge spokesperson Andrew Bates released the following statement after Donald Trump and Speaker Paul Ryan announced their opposition to the bipartisan Alexander-Murray compromise deal that would fund the Affordable Care Act (ACA) cost-sharing subsidies:

“Premiums are already soaring by as much as 30% because of Trump​, yet he and Speaker Ryan are trying to kill a bipartisan compromise that would reverse this trend and improve millions of lives.  They’re instead doubling-down on the malicious, politically-motivated sabotage of the Affordable Care Act that brought us here. Trump, Ryan, and every other Republican who side with higher premiums and against this bipartisan breakthrough will be inflicting needless economic pain upon the country, and their constituents will hold them accountable.”

Ryan and Trump’s opposition comes as health insurers have already begun to hike premiums on ACA marketplaces – including by 30% in Pennsylvania – as a result of Trump’s executive […]

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NEW POLL: Americans overwhelmingly oppose Trump’s sabotaging of ACA marketplaces   

A new, independent poll from the Kaiser Family Foundation shows that the country overwhelmingly supports bipartisan action to maintain and strengthen the Affordable Care Act​ (ACA)​, and opposes forcing the law to fail as Donald Trump has been attempting to do for months. A similar poll in April also indicated that a large majority of the public would blame Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress for “any problems with the Affordable Care Act going forward.”

​What’s more, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that ending the payment of cost-sharing reductions, as the Trump Administration announced they will do last night, would increase premiums for benchmark silver plans on the ACA exchanges by 20%.

In response to the latest polling, American Bridge spokesperson Andrew Bates released the following statement: 

“The writing is on the wall – the American people want to keep the unprecedented coverage gains and protections for people suffering from preexisting conditions that […]

Read more after the jump.