The Weekly Arc: May 5, 2017

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8 min readMay 5, 2017

Republicans Pass Healthcare Bill in the House

House Republicans on Thursday narrowly passed a controversial bill to overhaul the nation’s health-care system, claiming a major victory even as the measure faces an uncertain fate in the closely divided U.S. Senate.
Under intense pressure to show they can govern and to make good on their promise to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, Republicans pushed through the bill after adopting a last-minute change that earned it just enough votes to pass. However, the House version fell significantly short of the GOP’s long-held goals, making major dents in large portions of the current law but not outright repealing it.
The bumpy, months-long process that led to Thursday’s vote also violated some of the GOP’s own promises on how they would govern.
The measure proceeded without the benefit of an analysis from the Congressional Budget Office of its cost and impact on insurance coverage, and it did so after many Republicans openly acknowledged that they hadn’t read the bill. President Trump also promised “insurance for everybody,” which the measure will not achieve.
The American Health Care Act, which passed by a vote of 217 to 213, nonetheless represented a significant if incomplete political victory for President Trump, who has struggled to secure legislative wins early in his presidency. The vote was also an important win for House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.), who has spent years trying to dismantle Obamacare but has struggled in recent months to unite an ideologically divided caucus.
The House bill would shift power to states to set important health insurance rules. And it would end the ACA’s subsidies for eligible people who buy health plans through marketplaces created under the law, creating and substituting new tax credits. It also would rescind several taxes that have helped pay for the law, including ones imposed on Americans with high incomes, health insurers, medical devices and tanning salons.
Among the bill’s more contentious provisions is one that would allow states to let insurers return to their old practice of charging more to customers with preexisting medical problems — a practice that current law prohibits. — The Washington Post

This piece in Politico takes a peak under the hood to look at what exactly is in the bill.

Democrats Were…Not Happy

The House speaker, Paul Ryan, and other Republicans falsely accused Democrats of rushing the Affordable Care Act through Congress. On Thursday, in a display of breathtaking hypocrisy, House Republicans — without holding any hearings or giving the Congressional Budget Office time to do an analysis — passed a bill that would strip at least 24 million Americans of health insurance. …
The bill now moves to the Senate, where several centrist Republicans are opposed to it. The best hope for defeating this legislation rests with lawmakers like Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Rob Portman of Ohio. But Mr. Trump and far-right groups will put tremendous pressure on them to pass this dreadful bill or something similarly terrible. The health of millions of Americans is now in their hands. — The New York Times Editorial Board

Here is a roundup by CNN of reaction from Democrats.

France To Elect A New President

Two weeks ago, on April 23, the people of France narrowed the field of presidential hopefuls to two: Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen. This Sunday, May 7, they’ll once again go to the polls and vote to put either Macron or Le Pen in the Élysée Palace.

In this roundup, I point to 5 must-read pieces (really, it’s more than 5) to get acquainted with France’s current moment.

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