Denton Record-Chronicle (Denton, Tex.), Vol. 113, No. 224, Ed. 1 Tuesday, March 14, 2017 Page: 3 of 16
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3A
Denton Record-Chronicle
Tuesday, March 14, 2017
Millions may lose coverage under GOP bill
er after that. By 2026, average
premiums for individuals would
be 10 percent lower than under
Obama’s statute, it said.
The GOP bill would obliter-
ate the tax penalties Obama’s
law imposes on people who
don’t buy coverage, and it would
eliminate the federal subsidies
reflecting people’s income and
premium costs for millions. It
would instead provide tax cred-
its based largely on recipients’
ages, let insurers charge more
for older people and boost pre-
miums for those who let cover-
age lapse.
It would phase out Obama’s
expansion of Medicaid to 11 mil-
lion additional low earners, cap
federal spending for the entire
program, repeal taxes the stat-
ute imposes and halt federal
payments to Planned Parent-
hood for a year.
Administration officials took
strong issue with the budget of-
fice’s projections oflost coverage.
“We believe that our plan will
cover more individuals and at a
lower cost and give them the
choices that they want,” Price
said.
stated in January. He has since
embraced a less expansive goal
— to “increase access” — ad-
vanced by House Speaker Paul
Ryan and other Republicans.
Health secretary Tom Price
told reporters at the White
House the report was “simply
wrong” and he disagreed “stren-
uously,” saying it omitted the im-
pact of additional GOP legisla-
tion and regulatory changes the
Trump administration plans.
In a signal of trouble, Rep.
Mark Walker, R-N.C., leader of a
large group of House conserva-
tives, said the report “does little
to alleviate” concerns about the
bill including tax credits consid-
ered too costly.
The budget office’s estimates
provide a detailed, credible ap-
praisal of the Republican effort
to unravel former President Ba-
rack Obama’s 2010 overhaul.
The office has a four-decade his-
tory of even-handedness and is
currently headed by an appoin-
tee recommended by Price
when he was a congressman.
Trump has repeatedly attacked
the agency’s credibility, citing its
significant underestimate of the
By Alan Fram and
Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar
Associated Press
WASHINGTON -
T
Jr
J>
Four-
teen million Americans would
lose coverage next year under
House Republican legislation
remaking the nation’s health
care system, and that number
would balloon to 24 million by
2026, Congress’ budget analysts
projected Monday. Their report
deals a stiff blow to a GOP drive
i
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Ml
ft
already under fire from both
parties and large segments of
the medical industry.
The Congressional Budget
Office report undercuts a central
argument President Donald
Trump and Republicans have
cited for swiftly rolling back the
2010 health care overhaul: that
the insurance markets created
under that statute are “a disas-
ter” and about to implode. The
congressional experts said the
market for individual policies
“would probably be stable in
most areas under either current
law or the (GOP) legislation.”
The report also flies in the
face of Trump’s talk of “insur-
ance for everybody,” which he
#■ -
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Andrew Harnik/AP
President Donald Trump speaks during a Monday meeting with his Cabinet in the Cabinet
Room of the White House in Washington.
number of people who would
buy insurance on state and fed-
eral exchanges under “Obama-
care.”
federal deficits by $337 billion people who buy coverage,
over the coming decade. That’s
largely because it would cut the while the legislation would push
federal-state Medicaid program premiums upward before 2020
for low-income Americans and by an average of 15 percent to 20
eliminate subsidies that Oba- percent compared to current
ma’s law provides to millions of law, premiums would move low-
The report also said that
On the plus side for Repub-
licans, the budget office said the
GOP measure would reduce
Dept, seeks more time
Justice
Plant preparation
House slates new
deadline to provide
wiretapping evidence
5
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By Julie Pace
and Deb Riechmann
Associated Press
*.
WASHINGTON - Facing a
Monday deadline, the Justice
Department asked lawmakers
for more time to provide evi-
dence backing up President
Donald Trump’s unproven as-
sertion that his predecessor
wiretapped his New York sky-
scraper during the election. The
request came as the White
House appeared to soften
Trump’s explosive allegation.
The House intelligence com-
mittee said it would give the Jus-
tice Department until March 20
to comply with the evidence re-
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Barron Ludlum/For the DRC
Jessie Rodriquez, 7, helps his dad, Lupe Rodriquez,
(not pictured) with some planting beside the Univer-
sity of North Texas Language Building on Monday
along Fry Street in Denton. Juquin Melchor rolls up
some weed barrier in the background. Lupe’s Tree
Service laid down the barrier before putting in soil
for some decorative plants.
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Andrew Harnik/AP
White House press secretary Sean Spicer speaks Monday during the daily press briefing at the
White House in Washington.
quest.
That’s the date of the com-
mittee’s first open hearing on the
investigation into Russia’s inter-
ference in the 2016 election and
possible contacts between
Trump associates and Russia.
A spokesman for the com-
mittee’s Republican chairman
said that if the Justice Depart-
ment doesn’t meet the new
deadline, the panel might use its
subpoena power to gather infor-
mation.
able to provide any evidence of
the Obama administration
wiretapping Trump Tower, yet
the president’s aides have been
reluctant to publicly contradict
their boss.
White House spokesman
Sean Spicer tried to clarify
Trump’s comments Monday,
saying the president wasn’t us-
ing the word wiretapping literal-
ly, noting that Trump had put
the term in quotation marks.
“The president used the
word wiretap in quotes to mean
broadly surveillance and other
activities,” Spicer said. He also
suggested Trump wasn’t accus-
ing former President Barack
Obama specifically, but instead
referring to the actions of the
Obama administration.
Trump himself has not
commented on the matter
gate Trump’s unverified wire-
tapping allegations against Oba-
ma. The House committee has
turned the matter back on the
Trump administration, setting
the Monday deadline for the
Justice Department to provide
evidence.
In a response Monday eve-
ning, the Justice Department
said it needed extra time to “re-
view the request in compliance
with the governing legal author-
ities and to determine what if
any responsive documents may
exist.”
since his March 4 tweets, in
which he said he had “just
found out that Obama had my
‘wires tapped’ in Trump Tower
just before the victory.” He also
wrote: “Is it legal for a sitting
President to be ‘wire tapping’ a
race for president?”
In two other tweets, Trump
described Obama tapping his
phones, but did not put the
phrases in quotation marks.
The president’s accusations
against Obama came amid nu-
merous political questions sur-
rounding his associates’ possi-
ble ties to Russia. The FBI is in-
vestigating Trump associates’
contacts with Russia during
the election, as are House and
Senate intelligence commit-
tees.
Fort Worth man
tied to 4 killings
set for execution
“If the committee does not
receive a response by then, the
committee will ask for this infor-
mation during the March 20
hearing and may resort to a
compulsory process if our ques-
tions continue to go unan-
swered,” said Jack Langer, a
spokesman for Rep. Devin
Nunes, R-Calif.
Trump’s assertions have put
his administration in a bind.
Current and former adminis-
tration officials have been un-
ard’s bench
during a court
recess
barged into
Leonard’s
chambers in
By Michael Graczyk
Associated Press
HUNTSVILLE - When a
SWAT team showed up at a Fort
Worth motel room, a police ne-
gotiator was able to convince a
man inside who was wanted for
a killing rampage to crack open
the door and talk to him
“I know I am guilty, and so do
you,” the suspect, James Bigby,
told the officer. After more nego-
tiations, Bigby surrendered and
was arrested.
Now, well over two decades
later, Bigby is set to be executed
this evening at age 61 for two of
the Christmas Eve 1987 kill-
ings: the fatal shooting of Mi-
chael Trekell and suffocation of
Trekell’s 4-month-old son Jay-
son.
and
-*
White House counselor
Kellyanne Conway sidestepped
questions about the lack of proof
Monday, saying she was “not in
the job of having evidence.”
“That’s what investigations
are for,” Conway told CNN’s Way
Day.
an attempt to
abduct the
Bigby
judge, telling
him, “Let’s go, judge.”
Leonard and a prosecutor
wrestled Bigby to the floor and
pulled the gun away and the
judge continued presiding over
the case. Jurors were told about
The White House has asked
those committees to also investi-
BRIEFLY
the attack, rejected Bigby’s in-
sanity defense and decided he
should die. Then in 2005, a fed-
eral appeals court threw out his
death sentence, saying the trial
jury wasn’t properly instructed
to consider Bigby’s paranoid
schizophrenia as a mitigating
factor when they were deliberat-
ing his punishment.
Three years later, another
Tarrant County jury returned
him to death row.
Bigby confessed to shooting
Trekell, 26, and suffocating Tre-
kell’s infant son Jayson at their
Arlington home.
He was accused but never
tried for the killings of Calvin
Crane Jr., 38, in nearby Fort
Worth, and Frank Johnson, 33,
in Arlington.
“I was just out of a mental
hospital 11 days for electric shock
therapy when I killed these peo-
ple,” Bigby told The Associated
Press in 2001. He declined an in-
terview request as his execution
date neared.
Court documents show Big-
by, who had worked as an auto
mechanic and had two previous
prison stints for burglary, be-
lieved Trekell was conspiring
against him in his workers’ com-
pensation lawsuit against a for-
mer employer, Frito Lay Inc.
ACROSS THE NATION
U.S. has responded so far.
Beijing strenuously objects to
the initial deployment to South
Korea of a U.S. missile defense
system. One of Tillerson’s chief
tasks will be to assuage Asia’s
biggest country and arrange a
much-anticipated visit by Chi-
nese President Xi Jinping to the
United States.
Tillerson’s four-day trip will
be closely watched for signs of
how the Trump administration
will approach the escalating ten-
Washington
Tillerson visits Asia with
N. Korea tensions high
Secretary of State Rex Tiller-
son plunges this week into the
increasingly volatile situation in
North Asia with visits to Japan,
South Korea and China, the re-
gion’s central players for dealing
with North Korea’s missile
launches and nuclear tests.
Complicating the mission are
Chinese concerns about how the
sions with North Korea, whose
leader has disregarded interna-
tional appeals to disarm and ac-
celerated weapons develop-
ment.
concern in Washington that it
could soon develop a nuclear-
tipped missile capable of reach-
ing the U.S. mainland.
Last week, North Korea
launched four missiles into the
Evidence showed Bigby also
killed two other men, believing
they along with Trekell were
conspiring against him in a
workers’ compensation case he
filed against a former employer.
But Bigby was never tried for
those men’s killings.
Bigby would be the fourth in-
mate executed this year in Texas
and the sixth nationally.
His lawyer, John Stickels,
said Monday there were no
plans to file any late appeals. The
U.S. Supreme Court in 2015 re-
fused to review Bigby’s case. A
lower federal appeals court had
rejected arguments his trial law-
yers were deficient, that instruc-
tions to his jury were improper
and that evidence didn’t support
arguments from prosecutors
that Bigby deserved to be exe-
cuted because he was a danger
to society.
Bigby’s 1991 capital murder
trial in Fort Worth was marked
by an outburst in which Bigby
grabbed a loaded gun from be-
hind District Judge Don Leon-
The North conducted two
nuclear tests and 24 ballistic
missile tests last year, deepening
ocean off Japan.
— The Associated Press
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Parks, Scott K. Denton Record-Chronicle (Denton, Tex.), Vol. 113, No. 224, Ed. 1 Tuesday, March 14, 2017, newspaper, March 14, 2017; Denton, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1131745/m1/3/: accessed July 9, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; .