Repeal, replace
Story by Collin Morris, Assistant Sports Editor
In week seven, President Donald Trump and the majority of Republicans proposed a new health care bill in an attempt to fulfill their campaign promise to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act.
The GOP’s newly-revealed health care bill, titled the “American Health Care Act,” will retain aspects of former President Barack Obama’s signature achievement including protection of patients with pre-existing conditions and allowing individuals under the age of 26 to remain on their parents’ insurance plan.
According to The New York Times, the proposal will greatly limit the tax credit allocated to adults on the lower end of the economic spectrum and cut funding to federal Medicaid programs.
Simultaneously, the piece of legislation being referred to as “Trumpcare” and “Republicare” will provide new subsidies for upper-middle class and rich individuals. It also removes a tax implemented by the Affordable Care Act on the incomes of insurance executives.
On Monday, four Republican senators from various states wrote a letter to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell voicing their concerns with the bill’s intent to reverse Medicaid expansion, which they deem valuable to their respective states. The GOP can afford only two opposing Republicans.
Trump took to Twitter Tuesday afternoon to praise the American Health Care Act.
“Our wonderful new Healthcare Bill is now out for review and negotiation. ObamaCare is a complete and total disaster – is imploding fast!” Trump wrote.
Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, who is also a physician, has been a vocal opponent of the bill for weeks, calling it “Obamacare lite.”
Less than 24 hours prior, on Monday, Trump also signed a second executive order on travel, reinstituting the ban on immigrant and refugee admittance into the U.S. The revised order eliminates Iraq from the order, leaving Iran, Somalia, Sudan, Libya, Syria and Yemen the affected states. It also removes previously specified preferences given to refugees of a minority religion in their respected states – which were in all cases majority Muslim.
On March 2, the U.S. Department of Justice revealed that newly-confirmed U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions had two conversations, including one in private, with the Russian ambassador to the U.S., Sergey Kislyak, as well as other interactions with Russian officials at the Republican National Convention.
These revelations contradict Sessions’ previous statements, as he testified under oath during his confirmation that he “did not have communications with the Russians.”
Since the knowledge of the communications was made public, Sen. Bernie Sanders and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, among other Democratic officials, have called for Sessions’ resignation.
The attorney general opted to recuse himself late last week, separating himself from investigations into the Trump campaign’s alleged ties to Russia.
Sessions has since claimed he had conversations with Kislyak as a senator but not as a member of Trump’s campaign, despite Kislyak being one of the same officials involved in the scandal surrounding former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn.
Trump strayed from the issue, moving onto accusations against Obama. Trump took to Twitter Saturday night, claiming the former president had wiretapped Trump Tower while still in office.
Trump’s tweet came shortly after Breitbart News released an article making the unsubstantiated claims.
His following tweets referred to the alleged spying as “McCarthyism,” compared the claims to “Nixon/Watergate” and referred to Obama as a “Bad (or sick) guy!”