I think not. Louisiana's republican representative in the U.S. House Bill Cassidy in an effort to put up or shut up concerning the Affordable Care Act introduced a bill before the House that would allow small businesses and their employees less minimum coverage than provided by the ACA by choosing health plans that do not provide that minimum coverage required. The measure passed 247-167.
This proposal as pointed out in Bruce Alpert's article in the Times Picayune of 9/12/14 according to the White House H.R. Bill 3522 would roll back the progress made because of the ACA and would allow insurers to deploy practices such as charging businesses more when a worker has a pre-existing condition or when it has more workers who are women than men. The bill would allow insurers to go back to capping the amount of care that enrollees receive or to exceeding coverage of proven preventive care.
In other words Cassidy's and the republicans would like to return to the status quo in health care that was in effect prior to the passage of the ACA. Cassidy and the republicans continue to show they have no health care plan for the uninsured and continue to waste time on a proposal that will never become law because the White House said the President would use his veto power. Steve Scalise, the little boy whip of the U.S. House gave his usual comments about the bill and once again showed his ignorance.
If Cassidy and Scalise want to impress the Louisiana voters let them take up, debate and vote on the Minimum wage, immigration reform and a host of other bills they have been sitting on that would actually move the country and its people forward. They should stop punishing the people and the country because the voters rejected their party's ideology twice. We know republicans do not like the democratic process when they loose elections. Its really past time they get a life.
This commentary written by John Lucia
