Page 6 - Florida Sentinel 3-14-17

President News
Poor To Lose Health Care:
5 Agencies Investigating Russia’s Link To Trump Win
Donald Trump and Russia’s Vladimir Putin.
Hospitals Oppose Trump-Backed Health Care Plan
The leading trade group representing hospitals has expressed fears about the Re- publican healthcare bill, say- ing poor Americans could lose insurance.
The American Hospital As- sociation (AHA) said current provisions for "our most vul- nerable" would be thrown into doubt.
President Donald Trump met lawmakers on last Wednesday to rally them behind the bill, after a stormy 24 hours.
Moderate Republicans are concerned people will be stripped of coverage, while conservatives sense federal overreach.
The bill, called the Ameri- can Health Care Act, would replace the signature law of
President Barack Obama, so-called Oba- macare.
It would: limit future fed- eral funding for Medicaid, which covers low-income people abolish the require- ment that everyone should be insured replace subsidies with tax credits
Overall, the plan is ex- pected to cover fewer people than those who gained insur- ance under the Obama ad- ministration's Affordable Care Act
According to the McClatchy DC Bureau, the FBI and five other law enforcement and intelligence agencies have collaborated for months in an investigation into Russian at- tempts to influence the No- vember election, including whether money from the Kremlin covertly aided Presi- dent-elect Donald Trump, two people familiar with the matter said.
The agencies involved in the inquiry are the FBI, the CIA, the National Security Agency, the Justice Depart- ment, the Treasury Depart- ment’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network and representatives of the direc- tor of national intelligence, the sources said.
Investigators are exam-
i n ing how money may have moved from the Kremlin to covertly help Trump win, the two sources said. One of the allegations involves whether a system for rou- tinely paying thousands of Russian-American pension- ers may have been used to pay some email hackers in the United States or to supply money to intermediaries who would then pay the hackers, the two sources said.
Trump has yet to say whether FBI Director James Comey will be retained. The rest of Trump’s newly ap- pointed intelligence and law enforcement chiefs will in- herit the investigation, whose outcome could create na- tional and international fall- out.
Health Secretary Denies 15 Million Will Lose Coverage
Trump administration of- ficials mounted a strong de- fense of the Republican health care bill Sunday, in- sisting that it will increase coverage, reduce costs and leave no one worse off.
Health and Human Serv- ices Secretary Tom Price defined success on NBC's Meet the Press as "more peo- ple covered than are covered right now, and at an average cost that is less. And I believe
Tom Price ...Secretary of Health
we can firmly do that with the
plan that we've laid out there.”
The rosy forecast soon will come up against the Congres- sional Budget Office's esti- mate of the Republican bill's impact, expected Monday — that is likely to predict mil- lions of people will lose health insurance coverage under the plan.
Price on Sunday rejected one estimate of 15 million people losing coverage.
Attorney General Sessions Has Asked 46 Obama-Appointed U. S. Attorneys To Resign
Attorney General Jeff Sessions has asked dozens of U.S. attorneys appointed by former President Obama to submit their res- ignations, the Department of Justice announced Friday.
U.S. attorneys are normally replaced at the beginning of new administrations. Of the 93 U.S. attorneys, 46 remain from the past administration, according to the Department of Justice (DOJ).
Sessions asked for the federal prosecutors to resign "in order to ensure a uniform transition," DOJ spokes- woman Sarah Isgur Flores said in a statement.
“As was the case in prior transitions, many of the United States Attorneys
would continue investiga- tions and prosecutions until the new U.S. attorneys are confirmed.
The call for resignations ap- plies to all Senate-confirmed U.S. Attorneys, including Preet Bharara, the U.S. at- torney for the Southern Dis- trict of New York.
That comes as a surprise, as Bharara reportedly met with Trump after the elec- tion and agreed to remain in his position during the Trump administration. Ses- sions also asked him to stay, the prosecutor told The New York Times.
Once the resignations are submitted, it would be Trump's decision on whether to accept all of them.
Trump’s New Budget Will Layoff
Federal Workers And Award More
Private Contracts For Services
Attorney General Jeff Sessions has asked for 46 U.S. Attorneys to resign.
nominated by the previous administration already have left the Department of Jus- tice," the spokeswoman said.
The DOJ said career pros- ecutors in Sessions' office
President Trump’s
budget proposal this week would shake the federal gov- ernment to its core if enacted, slaughtering numerous pro- grams and expediting a his- toric firing of the federal workforce.
This would be the first time the government has executed cuts of this magnitude — and all at once — since the draw- down following World War II, economists and budget ana- lysts said.
The spending budget Trump is set to release Thursday will offer the clear- est snapshot of his vision for the size and role of govern- ment.
Aides say that the presi- dent sees a new Washington emerging from the budget process, one that prioritizes the military and homeland security while slashing many other areas, including hous- ing, foreign assistance, envi- ronmental programs, public broadcasting and research.
President Donald Trump’s new budget....federal workers...you are fired.
Simply put, government would be smaller and less in- volved in regulating life in America, with private compa- nies and states playing a much bigger role.
The cuts Trump plans to propose this week are also ex- pected to lead to layoffs among federal workers, changes that would be felt sharply in the Washington area.
PAGE 6 FLORIDA SENTINEL BULLETIN PUBLISHED EVERY TUESDAY AND FRIDAY TUESDAY, MARCH 14, 2017