50 votes. it s a challenge, because there are a lot of people in republican party on the moderate side who maybe uncomfortable repealing obamacare, and people in the right who aren t comfortable replacing obamacare, they d rather just repeal it and go home, and that ideological and philosophical differences playing a role. martha: stay with me for a moment. rand paul basically says this is a buyout for insurance company. why are we throwing money at insurance companies in the name of stabilizing the market place? they aren t the people that need the money. what you think about that? i don t get the buyout of insurance companies at all. i think it s about making sure that sick people and poor people can afford health insurance, which is a goal that republicans in my view should embrace. that s the principle behind the report transcending obamacare as you cited in the teaser. my foundation is all about market-based approaches to coverage. that s what we should be working on. the prom
discussion, larry levitz, senior vice president for special initiatives at the kaiser family foundation and senior advisor to the president of the foundation, amy, former acting admitted trader for the centers for medicare and medicaid services under president obama and the president of the foundation for research on equal opportunity, author of transcending obamacare: how medicaid feels the poor. thank you for being here. wanted to start with you, andy, some republicans have essentially said and democrats too have labeled this proposal as obamacare lite. do you see it that way? if it is light, it is extremely light. i think comparing it to president trump s own standards, which are to cover as many americans as the aca covered and do it more affordably, i think you re going to find probably all three of us agreeing that
if they get rid of obamacare and fundamentally alter it, anybody complaining about the health care system will be transformed into thinking, what were youan thinking when you destroyedd obamacare? megyn: trump ran on a promise that he would make changes. there is a real question about whether senator schumer is right, you can t take away you can t still have the good stuff, the universal coverage, t whatever. the coverage of pre-existing conditions without the bad stuff. the mandates. and this is where democrats are totally wrong, in my view. if you go toto our web site, we have published a plan called transcending obamacare that does everything the democrats claim to support. it covers more people, 12 million more people than
they attribute things to obamacare, even things that have nothing to do with obamacare. if they get rid of obamacare and fundamentally alter it, anybody complaining about the health care system will be transformed into thinking, what were you thinking when you destroyed obamacare? megyn: trump ran on a promise that he would make changes. there is a real question about whether senator schumer is right, you can t take away you can t still have the good stuff, the universal coverage, whatever. the coverage of pre-existing conditions without the bad stuff. the mandates. and this is where democrats are totally wrong, in my view. if you go to our web site, we have published a plan called transcending obamacare that does everything the democrats claim
to patients with pre-existing conditions. it would give out tax credits based on age bracket. the older you are, the more you get with no adjustments for income as the ryan plan does. and price s bill would simply eliminate the medicaid a program that covers millions of people, replacing it with nothing. and as the current chairman of price has also backed ryan s plan to privatize medicare telling reporters that he expects the house to move on medicare reforms six to eight months into the trump administration. affordable care act has some the one unequivocal success of that law is it has expanded insurance coverage to about 20 million people in this country. has plummeted to an all-time low of just 10% in the first quarter for first time 90% of americans