It takes CNBC article 13 paragraphs before admitting repeal of Obamacare mandate would result in loss of coverage for millions BY CHOICE

Here:

"Most of the losses [in insurance coverage] are due to the fact that people are not getting pushed into getting coverage," Levitt said.

Over 64,000 Minnesotans making less than $50k paid over $30 million in Obamacare penalties in 2015

Nearly 82,000 Minnesotans paid over $38 million in federal penalties in 2015 for not having health insurance.

That's how much repealing the Obamacare mandate would have saved those Minnesotans in 2015, the vast majority of whom made less than the national average wage of $46,000.

The national average penalty in 2015 was $470.

I'll entertain the notion of the US Senate's integrity when it repeals Obamacare, builds The Wall, and cuts spending

Until then, STFU.

Republican war on itemized deductions eliminates medical expense deduction

From the story here:

Under current law, the IRS allows individuals to deduct qualified medical expenses that exceed 10 percent of a person’s adjusted gross income for the year. The bill would repeal that itemized deduction, effective in 2018.

This is part of The Swamp's incremental war against taxpayer deductions.

For decades the threshold was 7.5% of AGI. Then under Obamacare it became 10%. Now it's gone entirely.

These greedy bastards must be stopped.

Strike Three and You're Out: Both National Associations, of Homebuilders and of Realtors, pull support from House tax plan

Trump looks set to be defeated on tax reform as 2017 winds down, just as he has failed to overturn Obamacare and build The Wall. And considering what the tax reform is looking like, it's just as well.

The tax plan as it stands this weekend eliminates the itemized deductions for mortgage interest and state income taxes, keeping only the deduction for property taxes.

Reported here:

[I]n a sign of the complex balancing act that [House Ways and Means Chairman Kevin] Brady must perform to produce a tax-overhaul bill this week, the property-tax announcement came on the same day that the National Association of Home Builders pulled its support for the legislation. The group’s chief cited concerns that the bill might undermine existing tax breaks that support the housing market. Likewise, a coalition that includes the National Association of Realtors said in an emailed statement that it “will vigorously oppose this plan.” ... It would appear that deductions for state and local income taxes and sales taxes would still be repealed under the planned House bill.

This is all the fault of our so-called conservatives in the US House. They aren't conservatives. They're doctrinaire libertarians who HATE people who want to get married, settle down and buy a house and have children. They view people as CAPITAL, whose value only decreases if it is too difficult to move them around at the whim of GLOBAL BUSINESS. That's why you'll never hear these people target the tax revenue lost to the lower capital gains and dividend tax rates, which are almost TWICE those lost to the mortgage interest deduction. These people are the enemies of localism and are instead the champions of the homogenization of society with its bland sameness everywhere. They are the ones who've shipped our jobs overseas and let in the tens of millions of immigrants who've further reduced our wages and opportunities.

One year from now you'll have another chance to send them packing.

I'll be voting for Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck before voting for a libertarian in 2018.

Trump action against Obamacare is angering the correct people

"Trump’s Executive Order on Health Care Is Flat-Out Disgusting"

Jonathan Turley: Trump's order ending healthcare subsidies overturns Obama's original unconstitutional order

Read about it and watch here.

Real winning, but how vulnerable the constitution has been to the executive.

More good news: Trump ends effective immediately $7 billion in funding for out-of-pocket medical expenses for low income insured under Obamacare

From the story here:

The cost-sharing funds, estimated at roughly $7 billion for this year, pays for low-income consumers' out-of-pocket medical expenses. Under Obamacare, insurers are required to offer lower costs for these services, for which the government then reimburses them. If they do not receive the funding, they must still offer discounts, and without an action from Congress they would be likely to sue for the money.

Good news: Trump does end run around Obamacare, expands ability of more associations to offer plans using Executive Order

From the story here:

The president signed an executive order "to promote healthcare choice and competition" Thursday morning at the White House. 

It is said to expand access to "association health plans" – group plans written by trade associations, small businesses, and other groups. Such large group plans do not have to abide by all the requirements of individual plans under 'Obamacare.' The order also tasks administration officials to develop policies to increase competition in the health insurance industry.

Told ya: Trump to raise lowest tax bracket from 10% to 12%

Story here:

Top White House and GOP leaders have agreed to raise the lowest individual tax rate from 10 to 12 percent, paired with doubling the standard deduction, 5 senior Republicans tell us.

The standard deduction becomes the football in this scheme. If the doubling survives intact, which is hardly certain, down the line someone can say it must be reduced, without advocating a change in the bracket percentage and voila, you've got a nice little tax increase on the poorest members of society without directly raising taxes.

This ridiculous tinkering with rates and deductions just continues ad infinitum since 1913.

As with the Obamacare repeal efforts, there are no guiding principles informing the tax reform debate.

Mandating health coverage at the federal level is tyrannical, and so is the income tax, quite apart from its deliberate inequalities.

Trump kept insisting on a replacement for Obamacare as well as a system of progressive taxation during his speechifying.

There's no there there. 

Jack Lew, who presided over an 87% increase in the national debt as Treasury Secretary, is suddenly worried about the debt implications of tax reform

From the election of Obama in 2008 until the election of Trump in 2016, $9.2 trillion were added to the total public debt. We've gone from $10.6 trillion in the hole to $19.8 trillion over the period.

Yet now we hear from Jack Lew in The New York Times here that

"digging a deep hole of debt by cutting taxes will make it harder to pay for other priorities. And when that debt makes deficits skyrocket in the future, policy makers would have to choose between raising taxes and cutting investments and vital benefits. ... Some Republican policy makers suggest they may reject mainstream approaches and assume positive economic effects that go far beyond those normally projected by the budget office and the tax committee. ... Such a reckless move would almost surely produce an explosion of debt."

Actually, the Obama Administration dug a deep hole of debt right off the bat by spending money it didn't have, tacking on $600 billion of spending to Bush's last fiscal year, and then regularizing the increase by avoiding the budget process in favor of continuing resolutions, the Congress' new bipartisan method of fleecing the American people. Deficits skyrocketed contemporaneously, and then Democrat policy makers recklessly passed Obamacare with its spendthrift Medicaid expansion. They didn't have to choose between anything.

The only people more full of horseshit than the Republicans are the Democrat engineers of the Obama economic catastrophe.

McKinsey analysis finds health insurance premiums shot up 279% on average, mostly because of guaranteed issue and community rating

From the story here from Sally Pipes:

The analysis was conducted by McKinsey for the Department of Health and Human Services. The consulting firm looked at rate hikes in four states: Georgia, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Tennessee. Premiums in each had doubled or tripled since 2013 -- the year before Obamacare went into effect. 

In Georgia, the average premium for the equivalent of a mid-level "Silver" plan for a 40-year-old male went from $94 a month in 2013 to $323 a month in 2017. In Tennessee, it went from $104 a month to $431.

Why Trump should think Republicans can come up with a fix to DACA in six months when they can't fix Obamacare in seven years is beyond me

It sucks trying to make a bunch of losers winners.

There were lots and lots of articles today about a tax reform bill . . .

. . . as if the Obamacare repeal debacle had never even happened.

Chris Jacobs for The Federalist favors the status quo on Medicaid in exchange for Obamacare repeal

It's uncanny how similar Chris Jacobs' overarching point is to the one we expressed here in June when we said that the status quo ante Obamacare was not the way forward, and that the way forward involves getting a buy-in from moderates and liberals on reform, but not repeal, of the Medicaid expansion in exchange for repeal of Obamacare root and branch.

The difference is in solving the funding problem. Jacobs admits his plan precludes "repealing all of Obamacare’s tax increases." Our idea doesn't, in exchange for a broadly based Medicaid payroll tax to democratize the costs. 50 million participants in the small group and individual markets are bearing the burden of funding "health insurance" for the poor, i.e. Medicaid, through grossly more expensive premiums and deductibles than before Obamacare.

As others have observed, the growth of the uninsured post-Obamacare is in this group because they can't afford it anymore.

The way forward is a compromise which keeps the Medicaid expansion, funds it fairly, retains state control of the program (federalism) just as now, and repeals Obamacare. 

Jacobs, here:

In both the House and the Senate, debate focused on a push-pull between two competing issues: The status of Medicaid expansion in the 31 states that accepted it, and what to do about Obamacare’s regulatory regime. During the spring and summer, congressional leaders attempted messy compromises on each issue, phasing out the higher federal match for Medicaid expansion populations over time, while crafting complex processes allowing states, insurers, or both to waive some—but not all—of Obamacare’s regulatory requirements.

But rather than constructing substantively cumbersome waiver arrangements—the legislative equivalent of a camel being a horse written by committee—Occam’s Razor suggests a simpler, cleaner solution: Preserving the status quo (i.e., the enhanced federal match) on Medicaid expansion in exchange for full repeal of Obamacare’s insurance regulations at the federal level.

A “grand bargain” in this vein would give Senate moderates a clear win on Medicaid expansion, while providing conservatives their desired outcome on Obamacare’s regulations. 

Trump should shut down the government NOW over Obamacare repeal failure, that way they'll know he means it over THE WALL

Newt Gingrich is full of crap: Mitch McConnell promised immediate repeal in January 2017 in December 2016

This morning on The Laura Ingraham Show, hosted by Raymond Arroyo, Gingrich criticized Trump for making this too personal.

Trump is fabulous right now answering questions . . .

. . . ripping into McConnell and Republicans on repeal of Obamacare and into Bill Clinton and Obama for enabling North Korea.

He's fightin' mad.

Big Dallas GOP donor closes his checkbook until Republicans pass Obamacare repeal and tax reform

Story here.

Flashback to 12/6/2016 to Mitch McConnell: "The ObamaCare repeal resolution will be the first item up in the New Year"

Here at The Hill.

No hurry, mate.

h/t Rush