Obamacare repeal bill revealed

SBS World News Radio: In the United States, a seven-year push to dismantle Obamacare is on the home straight.

Obamacare repeal bill revealedObamacare repeal bill revealed

Obamacare repeal bill revealed

It's nearly the end of the line for Obamacare after the Republicans released their own draft healthcare bill.

The draft bill proposes repealing the 3.8 per cent net investment income tax on high earners, and making it retroactive to the start of this year.

Republicans have been deeply unhappy with the tax, which affected high-income Americans and was imposed to help pay for Obamacare.

US President Donald Trump says the new healthcare plan will be compassionate and meaningful.

"Obamacare is a disaster. It's dead, totally dead, and we're putting in a plan today that's going to be negotiated. We'd love to have some Democrats' support, but they're obstructionist. They'll never support. We won't get one no matter how good it is, but we will hopefully get something done, and it'll be something with heart and very meaningful."

US House of Representatives speaker Paul Ryan says it's about delivering on a promise.

"We made a promise that we would repeal and replace this law. I'm very happy that the Senate has gone to the work of putting together a bill that keeps that promise. And so yeah I'm eager for them to pass it but I'm not going to opine on that on the details as they go along."

The proposed legislation also curbs Obamacare's expanded Medicaid help for the poor and reshapes subsidies to low-income people for private insurance.

Protestors converged outside Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell's Washington office and outside Trump Tower in New York.

Senator McConnell has been working on the draft bill in secret, after Republicans who control the House of Representatives approved a more conservative version of it last month.

He says this bill will allow Americans to take home more pay.

"It will repeal the employer mandate so that Americans will no longer see their hours and their take home pay cut by employers because of it. We agreed on the need to improve the affordability of health insurance, and policies contained in the discussion draft will do that. It will eliminate costly Obamacare taxes that are passed on to consumers, so that we can put downward pressure on premiums."

Democrats have long been opposed to attempts to repeal Obamacare.

Former US President Barack Obama posted on Facebook that the proposed bill is simply "a massive transfer of wealth from middle-class and poor families to the richest people in America."

He also posted "if there's a chance you might get sick, get old, or start a family - this bill will do you harm".

Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer says the bill will only benefit the people who least need help.

"This is a bill designed to strip away health care benefits and protections from Americans who need it most in order to give a tax break to the people who need it least. This is a bill that would end Medicaid as we know it, rolling back Medicaid expansion, cutting federal support for the program even more than the House bill, which cut Medicaid by US $800 billion."

It apppears there's no stopping the Republicans though.

US vice president Mike Pence, speaking in Washington, has praised the end of what he calls the "Obamacare nightmare".

"We have confidence that with his leadership, with this Congress, and with your help, we will end the Obamacare nightmare once and for all and give the American people the kind of world-class healthcare that built on individual responsibility, free markets, and state-based innovation and reform. That's the American way to lowering costs and healthcare solutions."

 






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