Framing the battle for the House in New Jersey: Healthcare!

At BlueWaveNJ, I've been part of a team that's produced print handouts to frame the healthcare debate in three battleground congressional districts:

• NJ-3, where Obama admin alum Andy Kim is challenging Tom MacArthur, the "moderate" who brought the AHCA, Paul Ryan's ACA repeal bill, back from the dead with an amendment allowing states to re-introduce medical underwriting in the individual market.


• NJ-7, where Tom Malinowski, Obama's former Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, is challenging Leonard Lance, a relative moderate who voted against the AHCA after voting to "repeal, defund or dismantle" the ACA (his words) more than forty times.

• NJ-11, where current House Budget Committee Chair Rodney Frelinghuysen is retiring, and Tea Party darling/state rep Jay Webber, a blood enemy of Planned Parenthood, is running against former Navy helicopter pilot and federal prosecutor Mikie Sherrill.

Of the three, Malinowski has the most detailed and thoughtful healthcare policy positions, including support for a broad Medicare opt-in plan like the Center for American Progress's  Medicare Extra plan. But the focus in each of these pieces is really on the Republican's buy-in  to Team GOP's recent attempts and current plans to dismantle existing healthcare programs -- the ACA, Medicaid, and, ultimately, Medicare -- and the Democrat's commitment to preserving what's already in place.

Below the fold, screenshots of each candidate contrast. At bottom, the front of each of these 5&8 "postcards." Going extra large for MacArthur, who's as responsible as anyone for repeal getting so close.

Tom MacArthur gutted ACA protections for people with pre-existing conditions. Can Andy Kim make the charge stick?

Axios offers an interesting first look at a battle that will play out in a lot of Congressional districts defended by Republicans who voted for the ACA repeal bill, the American Health Care Act (AHCA) as amended by Tom MacArthur (NJ-3).

Democrats will say the incumbent voted to gut protections for people with pre-existing conditions -- that is, the ACA rules forbidding insurers in the individual market to base premiums on an applicant's medical condition or history. Incumbents -- e.g. MacArthur, who introduced the amendment that opened the door to medical underwriting -- will say not so:

Sen. Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, one of the most vulnerable Democrats up for re-election this year, is out with a new ad that claims her opponent, Rep. Kevin Cramer, voted to gut protections on pre-existing conditions. Axios' Caitlin Owens has the lowdown:

• Naturally, Cramer doesn't like the ad. The North Dakota GOP accused Heitkamp of telling "repeated lies" about his stance on pre-existing conditions.

Those uninsured by the BCRA "not losing, but choosing"? Get ready to hear it more.

Bloomberg reporter Steve Dennis flags a Republican talking point in favor of their latest travesty of a 'healthcare" bill that we're likely to hear more of in the next two weeks:

Frequent GOP talking point in Senate hallways: +22M won't be "losing" health insurance, they'll be "choosing" to go without. https://t.co/o4Anh6DY5i

— Steven Dennis (@StevenTDennis) July 6, 2017

That's in response to:

Not lose, choose. Apparently you believe freedom is optional https://t.co/WIUJz2Mxv7

— JohnCornyn (@JohnCornyn) July 6, 2017

This argument was first voiced byPaul Ryan, defending the first iteration of the House bill, and later by Tom MacArthur*, whose amendment undermining protections for people with pre-existing conditions secured that bill's House passage. As Cornyn, the Senate majority whip, has emerged as gaslighter-in-chief defending the Senate bill (the so-called Better Care Reconciliation Act, or BCRA), we should regard it as a kind of front-line defense. If the cabal now redrafting the BCRA in secret manages to improve the CBO score by throwing a couple hundred billion dollars back in the coverage pot -- reducing the forecast increase in the uninsured to, say, 15 or 12 million --expect to hear a lot more of it.

There is a ghost of truth in the allegation, which can be made to look more substantial by gaslight. so let's shine some stronger light,. A few points:

Will Medicaid drown in a high risk pool? (updated)

Update, 5/3/17: $100 billion over ten years for high risk pools, as speculated below? Ha ha ha -- a HRP patch has been proposed, and it's all of $8 billion over 5 years. That's after a $15 billion "invisible risk" fund was tacked onto a $115 billion state stability fund... the math outlined below still broadly applies. As Larry Levitt said of the $15b infusion, it's all chump change. And they're making the ACA look simple.
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Rumor has it that Republican leadership may lure "moderates" holding out against AHCA passage by throwing perhaps $100 billion over ten years into high risk pools. Moderates could then declare themselves satisfied that prospective individual market enrollees who have pre-existing conditions will have access to coverage.

Leaving aside the historic poor performance of high risk pools, this reinforces my fear that all the public hand-wringing about medical underwriting is a smokescreen, giving moderates cover to eventually sign onto a bill that still rolls back the Medicaid expansion and cripples all Medicaid via per capita caps.

In fact, the patchwork of funding grants slapped onto the bill via amendment  (pregnant women and addiction! invisible risk! more medical expense deduction!) can be used to obfuscate and only modestly soften the original AHCA's basic math: over ten years, $1.2 trillion in healthcare spending cuts offsetting $880 in revenue loss stemming from repeal of the ACA's taxes and mandates. In the original bill, the spending cuts include:

Tom MacArthur's faith-based waiver for the AHCA

Representative Tom MacArthur, R-NJ, has taken the lead in advancing amendments to the AHCA designed to bring both the Freedom Caucus and the moderate Tuesday Group aboard.  For the moderates, MacArthur writes that there will be an additional $160 billion in funding over 10 years to increase tax credits for older buyers and preserve Medicaid coverage for new mothers (was that on the block?!) and addiction treatment. For the conservatives, an amendment has been published  that would allow states to opt out of prohibiting medical underwriting or requiring insurers to cover the ACA's Essential Health Benefits.

Actually, the amendment begins by purporting to restore EHBs, community rating and guaranteed issue, the prohibition on denying coverage or charging more to people with pre-existing conditions. But it then tacks round and enables states to seek "limited waivers" to amend the EHBs, community rating -- and medical underwriting, if the state establishes a high risk pool.

How are those waivers limited? There's the rub. Beginning in 2017, the Affordable Care Act enables states to seek waivers to change the structure of their ACA marketplaces, but requires that the state's alternative plan "provide coverage that is at least as comprehensive and affordable, to at least a comparable number of residents, as this title would provide; and that it will not increase the Federal deficit."