Page 32 - June 23, 2017

Groton Daily Independent
Friday, June 23, 2017 ~ Vol. 24 - No. 344 ~ 32 of 54
have coverage by 2026. The budget of ce analysis of the Senate measure is expected early next week. The Senate bill would phase out extra money Obama’s law provides to 31 states that agreed to expand coverage under the federal-state Medicaid program. Those additional funds would continue through 2020,
then gradually fall and disappear entirely in 2024.
The measure largely uses people’s incomes as the yardstick for helping those without workplace coverage
to buy private insurance. That would focus the aid more on people with lower incomes than the House legislation, which bases its subsidies on age.
Caroline Pearson, a senior vice president of the consulting rm Avalare Health, said the Senate subsidies would be smaller than Obama’s because they’re keyed to the cost of a bare-bones plan and because ad- ditional help now provided for deductibles and copayments would eventually be discontinued.
The bill would let states get waivers to ignore some coverage requirements under Obama’s law, such as speci c health services insurers must now cover.
States could not get exemptions to Obama’s prohibition against charging higher premiums for some people with pre-existing medical conditions, but the subsidies would be lower, making coverage less af- fordable, Pearson said.
For the next two years, the Senate would also provide money that insurers use to help lower out-of-pocket costs for millions of lower income people. Trump has been threatening to discontinue those payments, and some insurance companies have cited uncertainty as a reason they are abandoning some markets and boosting premiums.
Supreme Court could reveal action on travel ban at any time By MARK SHERMAN, Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court has almost certainly decided what to do about President Donald Trump’s travel ban affecting citizens of six mostly Muslim countries.
The country is waiting for the court to make its decision public about the biggest legal controversy in the rst ve months of Trump’s presidency. The issue has been tied up in the courts since Trump’s original order in January sparked widespread protests just days after he took of ce.
The justices met Thursday morning for their last regularly scheduled private conference in June and probably took a vote about whether to let the Trump administration immediately enforce the ban and hear the administration’s appeal of lower court rulings blocking the ban.
The court’s decision could come any time and is expected no later than late next week, after which the justices will scatter for speeches, teaching gigs and vacations.
Exactly when could depend on whether there are justices who disagree with the outcome and want to say so publicly. It might take time for such an opinion to be written — and perhaps responded to by someone in the majority.
It takes ve votes to reinstate the ban, but only four to set the case for argument. Justice Neil Gorsuch, Trump’s nominee who was con rmed in April, is taking part in the highest-pro le issue yet in his three months on the court.
The case is at the Supreme Court because two federal appellate courts have ruled against the Trump travel policy, which would impose a 90-day pause in travel from citizens of Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.
The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia, said the ban was “rooted in religious ani- mus” toward Muslims and pointed to Trump’s campaign promise to impose a ban on Muslims entering the country as well as tweets and remarks he has made since becoming president.
The San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the travel policy does not comply with federal immigration law, including a prohibition on nationality-based discrimination. That court also put a hold on separate aspects of the policy that would keep all refugees out of the United States for 120 days and cut by more than half, from 110,000 to 50,000, the cap on refugees in the current government spending year that ends Sept. 30.
Trump’s rst executive order on travel applied to travelers from the six countries as well as Iraq, and took