Greene County Democrat

Tag: Congressional Budget Office (CBO)

  • Newswire : Trump signs largest cut to Medicaid after a marathon protest speech by Leader Hakeem Jeffries

    Democratic Leader of the House of Representatives meets with press after 8 hour speech against Trump’s Budget Bill

    By Lauren Burke, NNPA Congressional Correspondent


    By a vote of 218 to 214, the GOP-controlled U.S. House passed President Trump’s massive budget and spending bill that will add $3.5 trillion to the national debt, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). The bill also represents the biggest cut in Medicare in history and is a threat to the health care coverage of over 15 million people. The spending in Trump’s signature legislation also opens the door to a second era of over-incarceration in the U.S. With $175 billion allocated in spending for immigration enforcement, the money for more police officers eclipsed the 2026 budget for the U.S. Marines, which is $57 billion. Almost all the policy focus from the Trump Administration has focused on deporting immigrants of color from Mexico and Haiti.
    The vote occurred as members were pressed to complete their work before the arbitrary deadline of the July 4 holiday set by President Trump. It also occurred after Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries took the House floor for over 8 hours in protest. Leader Jeffries broke the record in the U.S. House for the longest floor speech in history on the House floor. The Senate passed the bill days before and was tied at 50-50, when Vice President J. D. Vance broke the tie in favor of the bill.
    Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, who was last minute supporter, after winning some concessions for her state, said, “my hope is that the House is gonna look at this and recognize that we’re not there yet.” There were no changes made to the Senate bill by the House. A series of overnight phone calls to Republicans voting against, not changes, was what won over enough Republicans to pass the legislation, even though it adds trillions to the debt. The Trump spending bill also cuts money to Pell grants.
    “The Big Ugly Bill steals food out of the hands of starving children, steals medicine from the cabinets of cancer patients, and equips ICE with more funding and more weapons of war than the United States Marine Corps. Is there any question of who those agents will be going to war for, or who they will be going to war against? Beyond these sadistic provisions, Republicans just voted nearly unanimously to close urban and rural hospitals, cripple the child tax credit, and to top it all off, add $3.3 trillion to the ticking time bomb that is the federal deficit – all from a party that embarrassingly pretends to stand for fiscal responsibility and lowering costs,” wrote Congressional Black Caucus Chairwoman Yvette Clarke (D-NY) in a statement on July 3.
    “The Congressional Budget Office predicts that 17 million people will lose their health insurance, including over 322,000 Virginians. It will make college less affordable.  Three million people will lose access to food assistance through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). And up to 16 million students could lose access to free school meals. As many as 300 mostly rural hospitals may be forced to close by the Medicaid cuts. Health research groups predict that 51,000 people a year may die from not receiving needed medical attention due the health and nutrition cuts.
    The Republican bill does all of this to fund tax breaks for millionaires, billionaires, and corporations,” wrote Education and Workforce Committee ranking member Rep. Bobby Scott (D-VA) in a statement. The bill’s passage has prompted Democrats to start thinking about 2026 and the next election cycle. With the margins of victory in the U.S. House and U.S. Senate being so narrow, many are convinced that the balance of power and the question of millions being able to enjoy health care come down to only several thousand votes in congressional elections. But currently, Republicans controlled by the MAGA movement control all three branches of government. That reality was never made more stark and clearer than the last seven days of activity in the U.S. House and U.S. Senate.

  • Newswire : ‘Huge Victory’: Progressives Vow to Keep Fighting GOP Health Bill After Vote Delay

    By: Adam Gabbatt ,The Guardian
    health care demonstration
    Health care protest

    Progressive activists hailed a “huge victory” and a “giant step toward single-payer healthcare” on Tuesday, after Senate Republicans were forced to postpone a vote on their proposed healthcare bill.

    Many warned, however, that the battle was not over, promising continued attempts to pressure Republican senators over the Fourth of July recess and beyond.
    Thousands of activists from groups including Our Revolution, Indivisible and Planned Parenthood had spent the past week mounting frantic efforts to derail the legislation, which the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) said would leave 22 million more people without health coverage over the next 10 years.

    On Tuesday, after a number of GOP senators said they would not vote for the bill, the majority leader, Mitch McConnell, told his caucus he would delay the vote on legislation to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA) until after the coming July 4 recess. There were five Republican Senators – Dean Heller, Susan Collins, Ted Cruz, Mike Lee and Rand Paul.
    “It’s beyond a victory,” said RoseAnn DeMoro, executive director of National Nurses United, which encouraged members to pressure Republican senators to vote against the bill. “What people are saying is, ‘We want a society, we don’t want a market to protect our health.’”
    The bill would have been a victory for insurance companies, DeMoro said, and senators’ apparent distaste for the legislation was a blow for both those companies and Republicans.
    “I think this is a giant step toward single-payer healthcare – the fact that they defeated the Republicans – because ultimately, embedded in that is a defeat for free-market fundamentalism.” What people are saying is, ‘We want a society, we don’t want a market to protect our health.”
    Indivisible, a progressive organization established after the 2016 election to oppose Donald Trump and Republican policies, mobilized activists from more than 3,000 chapters across the country to protest the bill. “It is a huge, huge victory,” said Ezra Levin, Indivisible’s executive director. “But it’s not a final victory.”

    Levin said Indivisible’s ultimate goal was to defeat the bill outright, but the short-term plan had been to delay a vote until after the Senate recess.
    House Republicans who voted for the first and second iterations of their own healthcare bill, which passed in May, faced angry receptions at town hall events during the April and May recesses.
    “McConnell was trying to rush it through this week because he knew Fourth of July recess was coming up,” Levin said. “He knew senators would be heading back to their states and hearing from their constituents, so he knew it was going to get harder if the vote was delayed.”
    It was “not a foregone conclusion” that the bill would be defeated, Levin said. “The challenge now is going to keep the pressure up. We cannot forget what happened on the House side. This is a huge blow against Trumpcare but in order to actually defeat this, pressure will have to continue.”
    Winnie Wong, co-founder of People for Bernie, an independent activist group with more than a million supporters, echoed Levin’s concern but praised collaboration between dozens of leftwing groups in the weeks leading up to the delay of the bill.
    “It’s an effort that is being held up by almost all progressive groups,” she said, “whether they have anything to do with the Democratic party or not, I think there is a unification between all progressives right now around making sure Trumpcare does not go through the Senate.
    “All these Republican lawmakers are really feeling the heat from their constituents. They are not stupid. And in some states you see them doing the right thing.” Our Revolution, a progressive organization founded in the wake of Bernie Sanders’ campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination, said supporters had made “almost 8,000 calls” to the Senate to oppose the bill.
    “Today’s delay is a victory for the 22 million people who are at risk of losing coverage,” said Shannon Jackson, Our Revolution’s executive director. “As senators head back home for the Fourth of July holiday we will continue to demand they vote ‘no’ on this immoral and disastrous bill.”
    The Working Families Party (WFP), meanwhile, organized weekly protests outside the offices of Nevada senator Dean Heller and a sit-in in the office of Susan Collins of Maine over the past few weeks. It also held a demonstration at Reagan national airport in nearby Arlington, Virginia, on Friday which targeted senators flying home for the weekend.
    “An unprecedented resistance movement has knocked Trumpcare off course,” said WFP national director Dan Cantor. “But we will not stop organizing, protesting or speaking out until this immoral proposal is crushed, discarded and buried.”
    With the threat of a vote after recess week, however, Richards warned that it was “now more important than ever for people to make their voices heard”.
    “Republican leadership needs to hear over and over that the people of America will not stand to see healthcare stripped from millions, and they will not stand to see Planned Parenthood’s patients lose their access to healthcare,” she said.
    “Now, as senators go home for recess next week, it’s time to send the message that we need to stop this harmful bill once and for all.”

  • Rep. Sewell Statement on CBO Analysis of GOP Repeal Bill

    terri-sewell

     

    Washington, D.C. – Today, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released projections of how many Americans would gain or lose insurance under the Republican proposal to repeal the Affordable Care Act as well as cost projections for the proposed bill. The CBO analysis comes nearly a week after the Ways & Means Committee considered and voted to advance the Republican repeal bill. Congresswoman Terri A. Sewell voted against the repeal bill in committee.
    “The CBO report released today makes one thing clear: the Republican repeal bill will cost American lives and leave millions uninsured,” said Rep. Terri Sewell. “Under this bill, 14 million Americans would lose their insurance within the next year. Over the next decade, that number would rise to an unsustainable 24 million uninsured Americans. Our healthcare infrastructure, from our rural hospitals to our network of family physicians, cannot withstand that kind of blow to health coverage. I believe that all Americans have a right to affordable healthcare, but this legislation turns healthcare into a privilege. For families in my district, the Republican repeal bill means more expensive coverage with fewer protections. We cannot ask working Americans to go broke, bankrupt, or do without healthcare.”
    Today’s report from the CBO and Joint Committee on Taxation shows that by 2018, five million fewer people would be covered under Medicaid, six million fewer Americans would be covered in the individual market, and a total of 14 million more Americans would be without insurance. The CBO report estimates that in 2018 and 2019, average premiums for single policyholders in the non-group market would rise 15 to 20 percent under the GOP repeal bill.
    In addition, the report shows that low-income seniors will see premium increases of $12,900, while the average 40 year old will see an average premium increase of $700. CBO projects that the actuarial value of all plans will decrease under the AHCA.