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Frustrated by Congress, Trump signs order to weaken Obamacare

Agencies
October 13, 2017

Washington, Oct 13: President Donald Trump on Thursday signed an order to make it easier for Americans to buy bare-bones health insurance plans, using his presidential powers to undermine Obamacare after fellow Republicans in Congress failed to repeal the 2010 law.

Trump issued the executive order aimed at letting small businesses band together across state lines to buy cheaper, less regulated health plans for their employees with fewer benefits. Such new insurance options, however, may not be available until 2019, and the order could face legal challenges from Democratic state attorneys general. It was Trump’s most concrete step to undo Obamacare since he took office in January promising to dismantle Democratic former President Barack Obama’s signature domestic policy achievement.

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer accused Trump of “using a wrecking ball to single-handedly rip apart our healthcare system.”

Later on Thursday, Politico reported that Trump plans to cut off subsidy payments to insurers selling Obamacare coverage, citing two people familiar with the matter. Trump has repeatedly threatened to stop the payments, which are made directly to insurance companies to help cover out-of-pocket medical expenses for low-income Americans enrolled in individual healthcare plans under Obamacare.

The payments are estimated at $7 billion in 2017. If Trump does eliminate the subsidy payments, premiums for many customers on the Obamacare individual insurance markets would be 20 percent higher in 2018, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has said.

The White House did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. Republicans call Obamacare, which extended health insurance to 20 million people, a government intrusion into Americans’ healthcare, and have been promising for seven years to scrap it. Trump’s order aims to give people more access to cheaper plans, which do not cover essential health benefits such as maternity and newborn care, prescription drugs, and mental health and addiction treatment. Obamacare, known formally as the Affordable Care Act, requires most small business and individual health plans to cover those benefits.

“DESTROYING EVERYTHING”

“The cost of the Obamacare has been so outrageous, it is absolutely destroying everything in its wake,” Trump said at a White House signing ceremony.

Trump’s order was aimed at making it easier for small businesses to join together as associations across state lines.

Unlike large employers that can create their own health plans because their work forces are big enough to spread risk – mitigating the effect of individuals with serious illnesses – small employers have few options to offer reasonably priced health coverage. Allowing small employers to band together in associations is meant to give them options similar to larger companies. The White House also said the associations would give employers more leverage to negotiate with insurance companies in purchasing health insurance plans for employees.

Some of the business groups that the order is aimed at, including franchise organizations and retailers – which generally have a large number of hourly employees – said they are interested and want to be part of the rule-making process at the Department of Labor, but cautioned that there are many details to tackle.

“It’s not something we’ll be able to open a suitcase tomorrow and be in business with. There are a lot of issues to be worked out and to consider,” said Neil Trautwein, vice president of health care policy at the National Retail Federation.

A spokesman for the National Federation of Independent Business, the largest small-business association in the country, said it would be watching to see “how the regulatory architecture develops” and make a determination in the future.

Small businesses have been among the biggest critics of Obamacare.

The order also sought to change an Obama-era limit on the time span that people can use short-term health insurance plans, which are cheaper but cover few medical benefits. Those plans are currently limited to three months.

Joseph Antos, a healthcare expert at the conservative American Enterprise Institute think tank, said he did not believe the order would have much of an impact because employers from regions with lower healthcare costs, like Iowa, would not want to join up with those from regions with higher costs.

Experts also questioned whether Trump has the legal authority to expand association health plans.

Democratic state attorneys general have said they will sue if Trump tries to destroy Obamacare. California Attorney General Xavier Becerra said Trump’s executive order is just another step toward imploding the Affordable Care Act.

“It should come as no surprise that California is prepared to fight in court to protect affordable healthcare for its people,” Becerra said.

The association health plans could attract young, healthy people and leave a sicker, more expensive patient pool in the individual insurance markets created under Obamacare, driving up premiums. The American Hospital Association said Trump’s order “could destabilize the individual and small group markets, leaving millions of Americans who need comprehensive coverage to manage chronic and other pre-existing conditions, as well as protection against unforeseen illness and injury, without affordable options.”

Small health insurers and state insurance regulators also criticized Trump’s move. Hospital stocks edged lower in Thursday trading, with HCA Healthcare Inc down 1.7 percent and Tenet Healthcare Corp down 4.4 percent. Medicaid insurers also fell with Centene Corp off 2.5 percent.

Trump has taken a number of other steps to weaken or undermine Obamacare. He has not committed to making billions of dollars of payments to insurers guaranteed under Obamacare, prompting many to exit the individual market or hike premiums for 2018. The administration also halved the open enrollment period, which begins Nov. 1, slashed the Obamacare advertising and outreach budget, and allowed broad religious and moral exemptions to the law’s mandate that employers provide coverage for women’s birth control.

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News Network
May 20,2020

Kensington (United States), May 20: The world cut its daily carbon dioxide emissions by 17% at the peak of the pandemic shutdown last month, a new study found.

But with life and heat-trapping gas levels inching back toward normal, the brief pollution break will likely be “a drop in the ocean" when it comes to climate change, scientists said.

In their study of carbon dioxide emissions during the coronavirus pandemic, an international team of scientists calculated that pollution levels are heading back up — and for the year will end up between 4% and 7% lower than 2019 levels.

That's still the biggest annual drop in carbon emissions since World War II.

It'll be 7% if the strictest lockdown rules remain all year long across much of the globe, 4% if they are lifted soon.

For a week in April, the United States cut its carbon dioxide levels by about one-third.

China, the world's biggest emitter of heat-trapping gases, sliced its carbon pollution by nearly a quarter in February, according to a study Tuesday in the journal Nature Climate Change. India and Europe cut emissions by 26% and 27% respectively.

The biggest global drop was from April 4 through 9 when the world was spewing 18.7 million tons (17 million metric tons) of carbon pollution a day less than it was doing on New Year's Day.

Such low global emission levels haven't been recorded since 2006. But if the world returns to its slowly increasing pollution levels next year, the temporary reduction amounts to ''a drop in the ocean," said study lead author Corinne LeQuere, a climate scientist at the University of East Anglia.

“It's like you have a bath filled with water and you're turning off the tap for 10 seconds," she said.

By April 30, the world carbon pollution levels had grown by 3.3 million tons (3 million metric tons) a day from its low point earlier in the month. Carbon dioxide stays in the air for about a century.

Outside experts praised the study as the most comprehensive yet, saying it shows how much effort is needed to prevent dangerous levels of further global warming.

“That underscores a simple truth: Individual behavior alone ... won't get us there,” Pennsylvania State University climate scientist Michael Mann, who wasn't part of the study, said in an email.

“We need fundamental structural change.”

If the world could keep up annual emission cuts like this without a pandemic for a couple decades, there's a decent chance Earth can avoid warming another 1.8 degrees (1 degree Celsius) of warming from now, study authors said. But getting the type of yearly cuts to reach that international goal is unlikely, they said.

If next year returns to 2019 pollution levels, it means the world has only bought about a year's delay in hitting the extra 1.8 degrees (1 degree Celsius) of warming that leaders are trying to avoid, LeQuere said. That level could still occur anywhere from 2050 to 2070, the authors said.

The study was carried out by Global Carbon Project, a consortium of international scientists that produces the authoritative annual estimate of carbon dioxide emissions. They looked at 450 databases showing daily energy use and introduced a measurement scale for pandemic-related societal “confinement” in its estimates.

Nearly half the emission reductions came from less transportation pollution, mostly involving cars and trucks, the authors said. By contrast, the study found that drastic reductions in air travel only accounted for 10% of the overall pollution drop.

In the US, the biggest pollution declines were seen in California and Washington with plunges of more than 40%.

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News Network
June 22,2020

Geneva, Jun 22: The global count of coronavirus cases has surpassed 8.7 million, with 183,020 new cases recorded on Sunday, the World Health Organisation said in its daily situation report.

Over the last 24 hours, 4,743 people died from COVID-19 worldwide, taking the death toll to 461,715 fatalities, according to the report.

The cumulative global toll of confirmed cases has now reached 8,708,008, as stated in the report.

The WHO Regional Director for Europe, Dr Hans Henri P. Kluge, shared that Europe accounts for 31 per cent of COVID-19 cases and 43 per cent of COVID-19 deaths globally.

Dr Kluge highlighted that several countries continue to face increasing disease incidence and that "preparing for the autumn is a priority now at the WHO Regional Office for Europe"

The United States continues to be worst affected by the contagion with the highest count of cases and fatalities -- 2.2 million and 118,895, respectively.

The novel coronavirus was declared a pandemic by WHO on March 11.

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Agencies
August 5,2020

Paris, Aug 5: French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday said France will deploy a civil security detachment and several tonnes of medical equipment to Lebanon, whose capital was hit by an explosion that left over 70 people dead and thousands injured.

"Emergency doctors will also reach Beirut as soon as possible to strengthen hospitals. France is already engaged," the French President said in a tweet.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, also extended his deepest condolences to all those affected by the "massive explosion at the port of Beirut."

"We are closely monitoring and stand ready to assist the people of Lebanon as they recover from this tragedy. Our team in Beirut has reported to me the extensive damage to a city and a people that I hold dear, an additional challenge in a time of already deep crisis. 

We understand that the Government of Lebanon continues to investigate its cause and look forward to the outcome of those efforts," he said in a statement.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said his country is ready to provide support in any way it can.

"The pictures and videos from Beirut tonight are shocking. All of my thoughts and prayers are with those caught up in this terrible incident. The UK is ready to provide support in any way we can, including to those British nationals affected," Johnson said.

Israeli people share the pain of their Lebanese neighbours after a devastating blast in the port of Beirut and reach out to offer their aid, Israeli President Reuven Rivlin said on Tuesday.

"We share the pain of the Lebanese people and sincerely reach out to offer our aid at this difficult time," Rivlin said on Twitter.

Over 70 people have been killed while thousands of others were wounded in the massive explosion on Tuesday in Beirut which shattered buildings and caused widespread damage.

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