When Biden took office, one of his first acts was the elimination of our border security. Like a power-hungry dictator, Biden simply decided to ignore our immigration laws. His catastrophic border policy resulted in untold millions of unidentified foreign citizens from around the world pouring into our country. Its impact is now being felt in cities across the country. The worst is yet to come. PETER LEMISKA - AND WE'RE ALREADY THERE!!!
Monday, December 30, 2019
3 YEARS IN, NO SIGN OF TRUMP'S REPLACEMENT OF OBAMACARE - BUT THEN THERE IS NO SIGN OF TRUMP'S PRETEND WALL EITHER
3 years in, no sign of Trump’s replacement for Obamacare
WASHINGTON (AP) — As a candidate for the White House, Donald Trump repeatedly promised that he would “immediately” replace President Barack Obama’s health care law with a plan of his own that would provide “insurance for everybody.”
Back then, Trump made it sound that his plan — “much less expensive and much better” than the Affordable Care Act — was imminent. And he put drug companies on notice that their pricing power no longer would be “politically protected.”
Nearly three years after taking office, Americans still are waiting for Trump’s big health insurance reveal. Prescription drug prices have edged lower but with major legislation stuck in Congress it’s unclear if that relief is the start of a trend or merely a blip.
Meantime the uninsured rate has gone up on Trump’s watch, rising in 2018 for the first time in nearly a decade to 8.5% of the population, or 27.5 million people, according to the Census Bureau.
“Every time Trump utters the words ACA or Obamacare, he ends up frightening more people,” said Andy Slavitt, who served as acting administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services during the Obama administration. He’s “deepening their fear of what they have to lose.”
While Trump has yet to deliver on his campaign pledge to replace Obamacare, White House officials argue that the president is improving the health care system in other ways, without dismantling private health care.
White House spokesman Judd Deere noted Trump’s signing of the “Right-to-Try” act that allows some patients facing life-threatening diseases to access unapproved treatment, revamping the U.S. kidney donation system and the FDA approving more generic drugs as key improvements. Trump has also launched a drive to end the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
“The president’s policies are improving the American health care system for everyone, not just those in the individual market,” Deere said.
But as the president gears up for his reelection campaign, the lack of a Trump health care plan is an issue that Democratic presidential contenders and their allies believe they can use against him.
This month, a federal appeals court struck down “Obamacare’s” individual mandate, the requirement that Americans carry health insurance, but sidestepped a ruling on the law’s overall constitutionality. The attorneys general of Texas and 18 other Republican-led states filed the underlying lawsuit, which was defended by Democrats and the U.S. House. Texas argued that due to the unlawfulness of the individual mandate, Obamacare must be entirely scrapped.
Texas v. United States appears destined to be taken up by the Supreme Court, potentially teeing up a constitutional showdown before the 2020 presidential election.
Trump welcomed the court ruling as a major victory while Democrats accused him of trying to dismantle his predecessor’s health care law without offering a replacement.
Over the last three years, Trump and senior administration officials have periodically teased that a Trump plan was just around the corner.
In August, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Seema Verma, said officials were “actively engaged in conversations and working on things,” while Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway suggested that same month an announcement was on the horizon.
In June, Trump told ABC News that he’d roll out his “phenomenal health care plan” in a couple of months, and that it would be a central part of his reelection pitch.
The country is still waiting. Meantime Trump officials say the administration has made strides by championing transparency on hospital prices, pursuing a range of actions to curb prescription drug costs, and expanding lower-cost health insurance alternatives for small businesses and individuals.
One of Trump’s small business options — association health plans — is tied up in court. And taken together, the administration’s health insurance options are modest when compared with Trump’s original goal of rolling back the ACA, which Republicans blamed for rising premiums.
Although Trump has not come through on his promise of a big plan, internecine skirmishes among 2020 Democratic presidential hopefuls have largely driven the health care debate in recent months.
Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are leading the push among liberals for a “Medicare for All” plan that would effectively end private health insurance while more moderate candidates, like Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar, advocate for what they contend is a more attainable expansion of Medicare.
Brad Woodhouse, a former Democratic National Committee official and executive director of the Obamacare advocacy group Protect Our Care, said it is important for Democrats to “put down the knives they’ve been wielding against one another on health care.”
“Instead turn their attention to this president and Republicans who are trying to take it away,” Woodhouse counseled.
Some Democratic hopefuls appear to be doing just that.
During a campaign stop in Memphis, Tennessee. this month, former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg called out Trump on health care, saying the president is “determined to throw Americans off the boat, without giving them a lifeline.”
“President Trump has spent three years sabotaging the Affordable Care Act — and offering Americans nothing in return but empty promises,” said Bloomberg, a late addition to the Democratic field. “He promised to repeal the Affordable Care Act and replace it with something better — but he has never had another plan.”
Polling suggests Trump’s failure to follow through on his promise to deliver a revamped health care system could be a drag on his reelection effort.
Voters have consistently named health care as one of their highest concerns in polling. And more narrowly, a recent Gallup-West Health poll found that 66% of adults believe the Trump administration has made little or no progress curtailing prescription drug costs.
Prescription drug prices did drop 1% in 2018, according to nonpartisan experts at U.S. Health and Human Services.
That was the first such price drop in 45 years, driven by declines for generic drugs, which account for nearly 9 out of 10 prescriptions dispensed. Prices continued to rise for brand-name drugs, although at a more moderate pace.
Trump’s broadsides against the pharmaceutical industry might well have helped check prices, though drug companies have been hammered by every major Democrat as well as many Republican lawmakers.
Trump says a health insurance overhaul can be done in a second term if voters give him a Republican Congress as well as a reelection win.
But Trump and the GOP had that chance when they were in full control and unable to deliver, because Republicans don’t agree among themselves.
Trump could still score a big win on prescription drugs before the 2020 election. He’s backing a bipartisan Senate bill that would limit what Medicare recipients pay out of pocket for their medicines and require drug companies to pay rebates to the government if they increase prices above inflation.
Passing it would require the cooperation of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, harshly criticized by Trump over impeachment.
4.3M Migrants Caught at SW Border in Decade — More Than Los Angeles Population
Moises Castillo/AP Photo, File
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Border Patrol agents apprehended more than four million migrants who illegally crossed the southwest border with Mexico during the past 10 fiscal years. If these migrants were placed into a single city, it would be larger than Los Angeles by population.
During the past 10 fiscal years, October 1, 2009, through September 30, 2019, U.S. Border Patrol agents assigned to the nine sectors that make up the United States’ southwest border with Mexico apprehended 4,318,200 migrants. The highest year during that decade for apprehensions occurred during Fiscal Year 2019 when agents apprehended 851,553 — including 76,020 Unaccompanied Alien Children (UAC) and 473,682 Family Unit Aliens (FMUA), according to reports obtained from U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
Apprehensions by Fiscal Year:
FY2019 — 851,553
FY2018 — 396,579
FY2017 — 303,916
FY2016 — 408,870
FY2015 — 331,333
FY2014 — 479,371
FY2013 — 414,397
FY2012 — 356,873
FY2011 — 327,577
FY2010 — 447,731
During the past decade, Rio Grande Valley (RGV) Sector Border Patrol agents apprehended the largest numbers of migrants. Between fiscal years 2010 and 2019, RGV Sector agents apprehended 1,600,663 migrants who illegally crossed the border into South Texas, the reports state.
Agents assigned to the Tucson Sector had the second-highest number of total apprehensions — 946,948. The Big Bend Sector in West Texas had the lowest number of total apprehensions — 56,149.
The report shows a shifting in migration traffic during the past decade. In FY2010, the Tucson Sector reported the highest number of apprehensions — 212,202. This changed in FY2013 when the largest apprehension numbers shifted to the RGV Sector.
In Fiscal Year 2019, RGV agents apprehended 339,135 migrants including 34,523 UACs and 211,631 FMUAs.
During the past 10 fiscal years, Border Patrol agents apprehended a total of 433,216 unaccompanied minors. Officials reported that more than half of those apprehensions, 235,050 took place in the RGV Sector.
FMUA apprehension numbers for the decade were not readily available. U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials provided statistics for Fiscal Years 2013 through 2019. During that period, Border Patrol agents apprehended 857,328 family units. More than half of these, 463,811, occurred in the RGV Sector.
FMUA apprehensions represent the largest increase in migrant demographics. The number of apprehensions jumped from 14,855 in FY2013 to 473,682 in FY2019 — an increase of more than 3,000 percent. Again, more than half of the FMUA apprehensions occurred in the RGV Sector — 463,811.
With three fiscal years missing from the FMUA report, FMUA and UAC apprehensions account for 1.3 million of the total 4.3 million apprehensions. These demographics also represent the highest cost to U.S. taxpayers in terms of processing, transporting, feeding, and providing healthcare, Border Patrol officials repeatedly state.
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