<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>As the intraparty battle over the Republican plan to overhaul the healthcare system in the US rages on, many influential conservative groups are again making their voices heard early in the process.</p><p>The Club for Growth and Heritage Action have begun to attack moderate members of the Republican House conference for their opposition to changes being proposed to the American Health Care Act, the GOP legislation that would repeal and replace Obamacare.</p><p>"The left wing among House Republicans doesn't want to compromise or keep their pledge to voters to repeal Obamacare," Club for Growth president David McIntosh said in a statement on Wednesday.</p><p><a href="http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/327405-heritage-action-blames-gop-moderates-for-collapse-of-health-deal">And during a call with reporters</a> earlier in the day, Heritage Action CEO Michael Needham said he believes the moderate Tuesday Group caucus "clearly wants to keep Obamacare in place."</p><p>The groups, which are influential in conservative circles, opposed the original iteration of AHCA before it was pulled from a floor vote, calling it "Obamacare-lite" and did not repeal enough of the law, officially known as the Affordable Care Act. The groups have supported some of the proposed concessions to the Freedom Caucus. </p><p>But moderate members of the House, including the Tuesday Group, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/community-ratings-essential-health-benefits-ahca-trumpcare-2017-4">have balked at some of the proposed concessions</a>, including the repeal of ACA regulations that prevent insurers from charging people of the same age different premiums and baseline standards for insurance plans called essential health benefits.</p><p>The conservative groups say the more moderate members are failing to live up to their promise of repealing the law, and that House GOP leadership is not doing enough to corral the members.</p><p>"Conservatives, including the Club for Growth, were willing to accept the latest deal that would let states seek regulation waivers, but moderates want Obamacare largely left intact," the statement from McIntosh said. "This is big-government liberalism at work among House Republicans and Speaker Ryan is letting them run his conference."</p><p>Needham also attacked the GOP leadership for not getting the new version of the deal, which has been negotiated primarily by Vice President Mike Pence and members of the White House, <a href="http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/327405-heritage-action-blames-gop-moderates-for-collapse-of-health-deal">according to the Hill.</a></p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/sean-spicer-trump-briefing-white-house-paul-manafort-michael-flynn-russia-countries-2017-3">A reporter asked Spicer if he's confident that no one in the White House is a foreign agent</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="02OGVnYTE6vwyi-t0XZgGipZhZ6XU6TA" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

Influential conservative groups attack Republicans amid a fight over the future of their Obamacare repeal bill

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>Billionaire businessman Mark Cuban pitched his own plan to fix the Affordable Care Act on Wednesday, amid the House Republican effort to unravel the law.</p><p>He detailed the idea on his blog, <a href="http://blogmaverick.com/2017/03/08/some-thoughts-on-fixing-obamacare-shoot-holes-in-this-please/" target="_blank">Blog Maverick</a>. It amounted to single payer coverage for chronic physical and mental illnesses and life-threatening injuries, and standard insurance for all other healthcare. </p><p>The owner of the Dallas Mavericks and star of ABC's "Shark Tank" encouraged readers to "<a href="https://twitter.com/mcuban/status/839607750887866368" target="_blank">shoot holes</a>" in the plan.</p><p>Cuban wrote: </p><p style="padding-left: 30px;">"Whether it's Medicaid or a new program, every single person in this country should be covered 100% for chronic physical or mental illness and for any life-threatening injury.  </p><p style="padding-left: 30px;">"The premiums that we are paying to insurance companies as individuals or as company coverage for these significant risks would go from the insurance companies to the IRS. Only the cost of covering the what's left would continue being paid to the insurance companies.</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;">"It would not be hard to do the math. Every insurance company does this analysis already. The government does this analysis already. We all would end up paying  more in taxes, but less in insurance and healthcare costs over time.</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;">"There would be no mandates. There would be no individual penalties.  No tax credits. No subsidies. No offsets or deductions for buying higher end insurance. This will be single payer (yes I know it's a dirty phrase in this country) for chronic physical or mental illness and for any life threatening injury.</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;">"Everything not covered by the above can be covered by insurance sold on the free market, managed by the states, sold across state lines, without government interference."</p><p>House Republicans <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/cbo-score-gop-obamacare-replacement-2017-3" target="_blank">released their proposal to replace the Affordable Care Act</a>, otherwise known as Obamacare, earlier this week. But while the proposal has been endorsed by President Donald Trump and his administration, many in the more conservative wing of the GOP have slammed the proposal, such as Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky and Rep. Justin Amash of Michigan, who believe it amounts to "Obamacare Lite" or "Obamacare 2.0."</p><p>Cuban has flirted with the idea of a presidential bid in the past, recently telling Business Insider "we will see" when asked if he was considering a run at the White House. <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/poll-mark-cuban-trump-2020-2017-2" target="_blank">A recent poll showed that</a>, if he was the Democratic nominee running against Trump (Cuban is not currently registered with a political party), the billionaire businessman would be in a neck-and-neck race with the sitting president.</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/how-much-trump-family-costs-taxpayers-travel-expenses-mar-a-lago-2017-2">The Trump family's lavish lifestyle is costing taxpayers a fortune</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="RqNmx4OTE6RBhoUlXXu_BTxhzDBIYqe1" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

Mark Cuban fires his opening salvo at attempting to fix Obamacare

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>Vice President Mike Pence delivered a strong endorsement Saturday morning of the GOP's replacement bill for the Affordable Care Act, which was introduced earlier in the week by House Republican leadership and supported by President Donald Trump. </p><p>Pence, who spoke to constitutents in Kentucky, highlighted some of the pitfalls of Obamacare, including rising premiums and a lack of carrier options. </p><p>"The Obamacare nightmare is about to end," Pence said as he kicked off his address. He went on to outline some of the bill's primary proposals, such as expanding health savings accounts, providing tax credits to individuals to go towards their healthcare costs, and repealing the individual and employer mandate.</p><p>He also underscored two popular Obamacare conditions the GOP intends to keep in its replacement plan: the pre-existing conditions mandate, and the stipulation that allows children to remain on their parents' insurance plans until the age of 26. </p><p>However, under the GOP's new plan, while insurance companies would not be able to deny coverage to those with pre-existing conditions, it would penalize lapses in coverage with a premium hike of 30% as a means to discourage people from waiting until they are sick to purchase health insurance. </p><p>Pence spoke at length about reforming Medicaid as it currently stands. The GOP's replacement bill includes Medicaid block grants and would also kick lottery winners off the Medicaid program. It would also give place Medicaid regulation largely in the hands of individual states. </p><p>"We'll give states like Kentucky the freedom and flexibility with Medicaid to meet the needs of your most vulnerable in the way that works here in Kentucky," Pence said. He added that the bill would give states the chance to reform and regulate Medicaid so that it would "better serve the underprivileged" in each state. </p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>According to a <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/poll-obamacare-medicaid-support-opioid-epidemic-2017-2">poll released in February by the Kaiser Family Foundation</a>, a nonpartisan health policy organization, majority of Americans support the Medicaid expansion implemented by the ACA. </p><p><span>65% of Americans surveyed in the poll said that Medicaid, the government-run health program, should continue largely as it exists today, despite Republican proposals to change the program.</span></p><p><span>Under the ACA, Medicaid became available to more than 11 million new people than it was available to before, and states who adopted the Medicaid expansion received federal funds to assist with the program. </span></p><p>"Obamacare has failed the people of Kentucky, it's failed the people of America, and Obamacare must go," Pence concluded. </p><p>Pence's pitch to Kentucky came on the heels of Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul's forceful rebuke of the replacement bill, which he and other conservatives argue doesn't go far enough to repeal the ACA. </p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div></p><p><span>"</span><span>House leadership plan is Obamacare Lite," Paul tweeted. "It will not pass. Conservatives are not going to take it."</span></p><p><span>Sen. Paul, who has been a staunch opponent of the ACA since its implementation and has worked to repeal it multiple times in the past, is against the provision of tax credits, as well as the few ACA stipulations the GOP's proposal leaves in place. </span></p><p><span>Sen. Paul and members of the ultra-conservative House Freedom Caucus announced earlier in the week that they would be introducing legislation that would repeal Obamacare in its entirety. </span></p><p><span>After Sen. Paul and other congressional Republicans spoke out against the GOP's replacement bill, Trump <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/839268048313929729">tweeted</a>, "<span>I feel sure that my friend @RandPaul w</span><span>ill come along with the new and great health care program because he knows Obamacare is a disaster!"</span></span></p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/hacker-explains-risky-trump-android-phone-kevin-mitnick2017-3">A hacker explains why Trump using his old Android phone for Twitter could be a huge security threat</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="A2amM1YTE6iJyweN-n5trR-gIfjXni4z" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

PENCE: 'The Obamacare nightmare is about to end!'

<p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>Rep. Jason Chaffetz attempted to sell the new Republican healthcare plan on Tuesday by asking Americans to purchase health insurance instead of buying an iPhone.<p>Appearing on CNN's "New Day" on Tuesday, the&#xa0;Utah Republican dismissed questions about whether fewer Americans would be covered by the GOP's Affordable Care Act replacement.</p><p>"Americans have choices, and they've got to make a choice. So maybe instead of getting that new iPhone that they just love and they want to go spend hundreds of dollars in that, maybe they should invest in their own healthcare," Chaffetz said. "They've got to make those decisions themselves."</p><p>Chaffetz did not answer whether the new GOP plan would require lower-income Americans to make sacrifices, but claimed that "with more choice, you will get a better product at a lower price."</p><p><span>He pointed to&#xa0;the bill's proposed elimination of Obamacare's individual mandate, which <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/post/individual-mandate-101-what-it-is-why-it-matters/2011/08/25/gIQAhPzCeS_blog.html?utm_term=.48140cf16cf4">requires</a> people who do would not pay more than 8% of their monthly income to purchase the minimum health insurance policy or face tax penalties. The plan would also eliminate the mandate requiring large employers to offer coverage to full-time employees.&#xa0;</span><span>The&#xa0;individual mandate was designed to compel Americans to seek insurance, while ensuring that the insurance markets weren't flooded with overwhelmingly sick people, which would drive up the cost of insurance.</span></p><p><span>In the place of the individual mandate, the GOP plan would allow insurance companies to charge&#xa0;30% higher premiums for people who have gone 63 days without health insurance.</span></p><p><span>The new plan, which the House released on Monday, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/06/us/politics/affordable-care-act-obamacare-health.html">makes a number of changes</a> to the current law, eliminating taxes on higher-income earners as well as income-based tax credits and the Medicaid expansion that many states have adopted. In their place, the new plan would create per-capita caps for Medicaid, and new refundable tax credits for several age groups. &#xa0;</span></p><p><span>The proposal keeps some&#xa0;popular Obamacare initiatives in place, allowing Americans up to age 26 to stay on their parents' healthcare plans.</span></p><p><span>But it <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-care/obamacare-lite-new-gop-health-care-bill-has-host-critics-n729931">also tweaks other portions</a>, allowing insurance companies to charge older Americans 5-times the prices of younger Americans. Obamacare permits insurers to charge 3-times as much as younger Americans.</span></p><p>The new plan has faced almost universal&#xa0;opposition from Congressional Democrats, while some conservatives also remain wary of the plan.</p><p>Sen. Rand Paul argued that the bill did not do enough to drive costs down.&#xa0;</p><h2>Watch the clip below, via CNN:</h2><div></div><div></div>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/body-language-expert-analyzes-trumps-handshakes-2017-2">A body language expert analyzes Trump's unique handshakes</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="hvZGR4OTE6fDiZahuZ1zpqjivFu3kkIX" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

Top Republican advises Americans to spend on healthcare 'instead of getting that new iPhone that they just love'

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>If you were watching any television in 2010, you might recall that the Affordable Care Act cut $500 billion from Medicare over a decade.</p><p>You probably learned that because House Republicans' campaign committee blanketed the country with <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlmj9-RD84s">ads attacking Democrats for cutting $500 billion</a> from Medicare.</p><p>"Let's save Medicare," the NRCC urged, in one typical ad urging the election of a Republican majority.</p><p>Seven years later, Republicans are fully in charge in Washington, and a "repeal" plan being considered by the House of Representatives this week would undo large parts of Obamacare.</p><p>But it would mostly leave the Medicare cuts in place. Womp womp.</p><h2>Republicans can't help but break lots of promises</h2><p>People oppose Obamacare for a wide variety of reasons, and Republicans capitalized on all of those reasons in their campaign against the law. In doing so, they made more promises than they could deliver on.</p><p>Republicans would say in one breath that Obamacare cost the government too much money and premiums were too high, in part because its regulations required insurance to pay for too much. Then in another breath, they would say that deductibles and co-payments under Obamacare insurance plans are too high - even though reducing those deductibles and co-payments would require premiums to go <em>up</em>.</p><p>Obamacare was financed by raising taxes and cutting Medicare. So Republicans decried the tax increases, and they decried the Medicare cuts even more loudly.</p><p>But because Republicans (mostly) acknowledge the need to maintain some sort of health insurance subsidy as a replacement for Obamacare, which will cost money, they won't be able to undo all the tax increases and all the Medicare cuts without exploding the deficit. Yet Republicans are also opposed to deficits.</p><p>Now that Republicans actually run the government, we are seeing which set of concerns they will choose to prioritize, given limited available resources.</p><p>The unsurprising answer is: Republicans will make a priority of repealing substantially all the tax increases in Obamacare, most of which fall on people who make over $200,000 a year. If House Speaker Paul Ryan gets his way, people who hated Obamacare <em>because of the taxes it imposed</em> will get nearly everything they wanted.</p><p>But much of the rest of the law will stay in place. And people who hated the law for non-tax reasons - they thought insurance premiums were too high, they didn't like being penalized for not having insurance, they didn't like cuts to Medicare - mostly won't get what they were expecting.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div></p><h2>Cuts for Medicare participants are here to stay</h2><p>The House plan would retain about 95% of Obamacare's cuts to Medicare.</p><p>It would reverse one category of cuts: reductions in so-called "disproportionate share" payments to hospitals. And while these payments are administered through Medicare, they don't directly benefit Medicare beneficiaries.</p><p>Disproportionate share payments compensate hospitals for caring for the uninsured. And because the Republican plan will tend to increase the number of uninsured patients, hospitals are going to need the increase.</p><p>The Medicare cuts that Medicare participants might especially care about - like reductions to rates providers are paid for caring for Medicare patients, and the elimination of bonus benefits once enjoyed by participants in private Medicare Advantage plans - are untouched in the House plan.</p><p>You might assume that's because the House plan is not a full Obamacare repeal - as Sen. Rand Paul complains, it's "Obamacare-lite."</p><p>Yet the "full" repeal plan touted by conservatives, which passed Congress in 2015 and was vetoed by Barack Obama, and which Paul says he will reintroduce in this Congress, <a href="http://files.kff.org/attachment/Issue-Brief-Comparison-of-Medicare-Provisions-in-Recent-Bills-and-Proposals">also kept in place</a> the cuts to Medicare benefits. It didn't even restore the disproportionate share payments.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div></p><h2>Lots of other Obamacare complaints are also unaddressed by the House plan</h2><p>A lot of people don't like the individual mandate in Obamacare. This plan would repeal the existing mandate, but replace it with another one payable directly to insurance companies - a 30% penalty premium if you let your health insurance lapse.</p><p>Other people were upset about Obamacare because their healthcare costs went up, perhaps for reasons related to Obamacare or perhaps for other reasons. Yet this plan has no apparent architecture for cost control. Republicans' major cost control idea, a cap on the tax benefit for health insurance, might have helped discourage spending growth in the long run but was scrapped in negotiations over the plan.</p><p>Of course, what consumers really care about is healthcare costs borne by them, not global costs. The Republican plan offers more generous healthcare subsidies to some consumers. But it also cuts the subsidies enjoyed by many, especially people who live in rural areas with high health care costs and people aged between 50 and 64 - both disproportionately Republican groups.</p><h2>The few people who like this plan care mostly about tax cuts</h2><p>Because the House plan on Obamacare addresses so few of the objections to Obamacare, and because it at the same time would cut benefits created by Obamacare that many people rely on, the rollout of the plan has gone poorly.</p><p>Moderate Republican senators are wary about big cuts to Medicaid, while conservative groups like Heritage Action and FreedomWorks believe the plan leaves too much of Obamacare's benefit infrastructure in place. Defectors from the far-right and from the center threaten passage of the plan.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>But a few players have praised the plan: the Wall Street Journal editorial board, the Chamber of Commerce, and anti-tax advocate Grover Norquist, to name a few.</p><p>What these people praising it have in common is they are mostly interested in healthcare policy because healthcare spending is paid for with taxes, and the plan would cut taxes, including by reducing capital gains taxes on high earners by 3.8 percentage points.</p><p><span>The biggest new tax in Obamacare is on the incomes of people making over $200,000, but there are also taxes on health insurance premiums, medical devices, branded pharmaceuticals, tanning services and more. If you operate a tanning salon, this plan has what you wanted out of Obamacare "repeal."</span></p><h2>It matters which half of the loaf you get</h2><p>You will see Republican leaders make the argument that various factors constrain what Republicans can deliver on healthcare - for example, the popularity of the requirement that insurers cover people with pre-existing conditions, and the limitations on what can pass the Senate with a simple majority.</p><p>Take this plan, they will say, because it's better than the status quo, and we can do more later.</p><p>But the question is, better for whom?</p><p>This Obamacare repeal plan leaves out much of the wish list of the anti-Obamacare coalition. It lacks most of the deregulatory provisions that were supposed to make insurance cheaper and offset the reductions in subsidies offered to many Americans. It will likely result in millions of Americans losing health insurance. It offers no restoration of Medicare benefits to the seniors who were activated to vote Republican over Medicare cuts in the 2010 election. </p><p>Yet curiously, some groups did not have to compromise: Wealthy people, medical device manufacturers, pharmaceutical companies, tanning salons.</p><p>Funny how that works, even in Donald Trump's newly populist Republican Party.</p><p class="tagline">This is an opinion column. The thoughts expressed are those of the author.</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/watch-trump-refuse-answer-how-respond-russian-spy-ship-2017-2">'I'm not going to tell you': Trump refuses to answer how he will respond to a Russian spy ship spotted near the coast</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="M1NnJyOTE6-MRKFPvjLPXZM8wXpQUbX4" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

Only the rich get what they want out of this Obamacare repeal bill

<br /><keyword id="3658" type="LOCATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="India">India</keyword> is consistently being bandied as the next major growth market for all smartphone companies, but there is one company that’s really struggling to crack India. The company in question is the most valuable one in the world -- <keyword id="6354427" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="apple">Apple</keyword>.<br /><br />According to CounterPoint’s latest report, Apple’s market share has dropped to an all-time low in India, with its share of the smartphone market dropping to below 2%. The problem is a combination of the nature of the Indian smartphone consumer, Indian laws and Apple’s stubbornness.<br /><br />This quarter Xiaomi and Samsung have emerged as the defacto leaders with their combined market share in India pushing 30%. Samsung managed to regain its lead in India with a share of 29%, up from 24% in the previous quarter, as per a report by Canalys. Xiaomi also grew to 28% market share in the country.<br /><br />While Tim Cook has reiterated often that India is a key market for the Cupertino-based giant, Apple has hit a new low in India, which is clearly the most important smartphone market outside of China.<br /><br /><strong>Pricing doesn’t allow Apple to compete for market share in India<br /></strong><br />The problem for the company is that India is primarily a sub Rs 15,000 market, while the cheapest <keyword id="6354606" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="iPhone">iPhone</keyword> – the iPhone SE costs Rs 26,000, and runs three-year-old hardware. Apple doesn’t make cheap products because it doesn’t want to be perceived as a mass market smartphone brand.<br /><br />The Indian market is wildly different from the one in the United States, Europe and even China, which is Apple’s favourite market off-late. These markets are dominated by the operators and their contracts, where users can get the latest and greatest iPhone for about the same Rs 15,000 amount, put in as down payment.<br /><br />The space for phones that cost more than Rs 30,000 is just 4% of the Indian smartphone market. And that is commanded by OnePlus, followed by Samsung. Even if Apple were to get 100% market share in the premium space, it would still only command 4% of the market.<br /><br />Even when competing on price, older iPhones like the 6S and 7 lose out to newer phones from companies like OnePlus on both marketing and also technical capability. Indians tend to buy phones on the basis of specifications and even some of the newer models lose out to brands like OnePlus in the premium segment as the iPhone 6S and 7 models are perceived to be inferior.<br /><br /><strong>Hardware disadvantage<br /></strong><br />Apple’s hardware disadvantage swells up when one talks about the cheapest iPhone models in this country. Apple simply doesn’t have a product in that price bracket, the sub-Rs 20,000 zone, and that’s the price point where the market for new smartphones is exploding.<br /><br />While the cheapest iPhone, the SE, costs Rs 26,000, it’s not the best selling iPhone here. It is the iPhone 6, which first popped up in 2014...and here we are in 2018. <br /><br />There are two reasons for this -- first, the iPhone 6 has a bigger screen (4.7-inch) which is more to the liking of Indian users; and second, design-wise, it’s not too dissimilar from the iPhone 8 which came out at the fag end of 2017.<br /><br />With the entry of Reliance Jio in India in late 2016, Indians have developed a voracious appetite for consuming video on the go. The iPhone SE, which uses the design of the iPhone 5 and 5S, has a rather small 4-inch screen. Newer phones like the Redmi Note 5 have much larger 5.99-inch screens. That’s a difference of 2-inches and considering mobile video, it's a huge one.<br /><br />The iPhone SE and iPhone 6, which are the two cheapest iPhones in India also have dated cameras. Nowadays, phones like the Honor 9 Lite and Redmi Note 5 Pro also offer dual cameras with an iPhone X-like bokeh mode -- something these older, cheaper iPhones can’t hope to match.<br /><br />Network conditions in India are often quite poor, connectivity wise, which results in smartphones consuming more battery. Apple’s iPhones have never been known for battery life. The most affordable iPhone in India (iPhone SE) has a meagre 1,624mAh battery, while phones half its price are pushing battery packs that are more than double the size.<br /><br />iPhones also don’t offer hardware features that are popular in emerging markets like ours. For instance, there is no support for dual SIM cards, and there is no support for expandable memory. With newer models like the iPhone 7, iPhone 8 and iPhone X, there isn’t even a headphone jack -- something competitors like Samsung and OnePlus are providing to customers in the premium segment.<br /><br />Apple hasn’t been able to push its design as a premium advantage either, as Chinese smartphone manufacturers have aped iPhone-like designs on almost all their phones. In fact, the design of the iPhone X has been democratised by Chinese smartphone makers. <br /><br />For instance, the iPhone X-style notch display can be found even on new phones like the Honor 9N that starts at just Rs 13,999 while offering dual cameras on not only the back but also for selfies, and also providing a battery that’s almost twice as big as the iPhone SE.<br /><br />Even their software is designed in a way that Android looks more like iOS. Android modifications from vendors like <keyword id="6357456" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="huawei">Huawei</keyword>, Xiaomi, Oppo and Vivo follow the same basic iOS-like design language. <br /><br /><strong>Software disadvantage<br /></strong><br />It’s bad enough that many Android smartphone makers have designed their software to mimic the look and feel of iOS, but Apple’s problems are compounded by the fact that its own services perform poorly in India or are non-existent.<br /><br />Apple Maps is perhaps the biggest no-show. It doesn’t do turn-by-turn navigation in India and its mapping coverage is abysmal in the country. It is a matter of fact that Apple Maps can’t be used in India as a reliable tool for commuting.<br /><br />Apple Pay isn’t available in India at a time where digital payments are taking off in the country. Paytm and Google’s Tez payments systems are taking off in India massively. Samsung launched Samsung Pay in India last year.<br /><br />Apple Pay is dependent on NFC, while Samsung Pay uses a combination of NFC and magnetic secure transaction (MST), which mimics the magnetic signal a credit or debit card makes to a POS machine.<br /><br />Siri, on most days doesn’t understand the Indian accent as well as the Google Assistant, and nor can it do much. Heck, <keyword id="10387" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Microsoft">Microsoft</keyword>’s Cortana and Amazon’s Alexa do a better job and this is despite the fact that Apple was the first company to deploy a virtual assistant.<br /><br />While Apple’s services hobble on its own trophy -- the iPhone -- its competitors -- Google, Amazon and Microsoft have their services performing better on iOS. For mapping, most people use Google Maps. For search, Google Search becomes the default, and for productivity, Microsoft’s Office crushes Apple’s iWork apps.<br /><br />Rarely, you’re using Apple software on the iPhone in India. Even Apple Music, which is one of the rare examples of an Apple service doing well in the country, has been flanked by local competition like Ganna.com, Jio music, Wynk and Saavn. All of whom have a free tier.<br /><br />On older iPhones, Apple’s iOS updates have also crippled the experience of the iPhone. A couple of years ago, there used to be a strong argument in favour of the iPhone as it would perform well for over two years. Apple’s recent updates have made older iPhones inferior in comparison to newer Android phones that cost the same. Apple is addressing this issue in this year's iOS 12 update, which makes huge performance improvements to older iPhones, but it could be too little too late.<br /><br />The app store also doesn't make life easy for users as it demands a credit card for a user to even download free apps. That's not the case on the Google Play store. <br /><br /><strong>Apple has been late in localising services for India<br /></strong><br />The larger issue here is that Apple isn’t localising its services for India in the way it has attempted to for China. This is indicative of the fact that Apple hasn’t taken the time or put enough resources behind localising its services for this country. Samsung and Huawei have R&amp;D centres in India customising services for the market. Xiaomi also prioritises and customises products for India.<br /><br />Apple opened an App Accelerator in Bangalore and a facility for Apple Maps in Hyderabad only in 2016. Google has had software and services being developed out of India since the mid-2000s, while Microsoft has been in India since the early 90’s. This has, in turn, inhibited Apple’s ability to quickly pivot.<br /><br />Its biggest competitor, Google, on a platform level, makes products for India. Google CEO Sundar Pichai said last year, “India shapes how we build products. If something works in India it will work globally.” And this philosophy can be seen in the customisations that Google has made to core services like Android, Maps, YouTube, Search and even payments.<br /><br />Its next billion division has made “Go” editions of Android, YouTube, Search and Maps, which are designed to work better on low power phones and poorer network conditions. They have even invested in KaiOS that powers feature phones like the Jio Phone creating its own versions of YouTube, Google Search and Assistant in India.<br /><br />For Apple to replicate its China success in India, it has to do a lot more than what it did in China. Even in China, Apple’s momentum has slowed so it has a steep slope to climb there as well. <br /><br />In China, Google and Amazon are almost non-existent. In India, they are big players. Apple isn’t able to compete with Google with regards to services. Most people use Google services which are part of all Android phones and one doesn’t need to buy a comparatively expensive iPhone to enjoy them.<br /><br /><strong>Apple and the Indian government: Frenemies?<br /></strong><br />Apple hasn’t seen eye to eye with the Indian government for long. Apple expected concessions for manufacturing in India. It never made headway with that. While it lobbied for tax concessions -- brands like Xiaomi, Oppo and Huawei all got on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ‘Make in India’ programme which grants locally assembled phones some tax concessions. <br /><br />Only recently, Apple has started manufacturing both the iPhone SE and iPhone 6S in India. There are some reports that Apple has locked in a deal with one of its ODM vendors to manufacture even the iPhone X, but that’s not happening right now. <br /><br /><br />The price variance between the iPhone X and the new Samsung Galaxy S9+ is quite startling. The iPhone X tops out at a whopping Rs 1,07,999 while the latest Galaxy S9+ tops out at Rs 69,000 for its top-end model in India. That’s almost a gap of Rs 40,000 which ironically is the cost of the 128GB model of the OnePlus 6 which is currently the best selling smartphone in the premium segment in this country.<br /><br />In the US, the iPhone X costs $1,149 which is around Rs 79,000 and the Galaxy S9+ costs $792 (around Rs 55,000). This points towards the fact that India is the most expensive place to purchase an iPhone and also the fact that Samsung’s phones have a huge price advantage in India that they don’t enjoy even in the US. And a lot of this is due to the fact that the S9+ is assembled in Samsung’s factory in Greater Noida (a satellite town outside New Delhi) which also happens to be the largest smartphone manufacturing plant in the world.<br /><br />The iPhone is further hobbled by the fact that it has an international warranty and India has a bubbling <keyword id="395545" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="grey-market">grey market</keyword>. It’s totally possible for someone to buy an imported iPhone for much lesser than the official price in India and still enjoy global warranty on the product.<br /><br />For years, Apple has been hoping to get permissions to set up its iconic Apple Stores in India. Indian law stipulates that single brand retail can only happen when products use 30% raw materials that are locally sourced -- that’s a hard problem to solve for Apple. That’s led to it selling its phones via resellers who often have discounted products to move inventory, thereby diluting Apple’s premium identity.<br /><br />In order to move more affordable iPhones, the Indian government has also rejected Apple’s plan for selling refurbished iPhones in India. More recently, Apple has been deadlocked in a stalemate with Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) in India over the installation of its spam reporting app on the iPhone.<br /><br />The telecom regulator has been reported to be taking extreme steps which could result in the iPhone being blocked from telecom networks in India if Apple doesn’t play ball, but that seems to be changing. An update in iOS 12 could possibly pave the way for an extension in the iMessage app for the TRAI to push out its spam reporting feature.<br /><br />The big takeaway is that Apple’s brand positioning makes its life hard enough in a market where feature phone sales are still growing, however, it hasn’t helped its own cause by not investing in India in a timely manner and also not adopting and partaking quickly enough in initiatives of the Indian government which has put it at a disadvantage with regards to lobbying.<br /><br /><br /><br />

Here’s why the iPhone can’t compete in India

<ul class="summary-list"><li>The rise of self-directed <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/brokers-robinhood-charles-schwab-fractional-stock-trading-2019-12">fractional-share trading</a> is a product of the fiercely competitive, margin-pressured environment that startup and legacy brokerages alike are operating in today.</li><li>Players like Robinhood, Fidelity, and Charles Schwab have raced to announce their own offerings - marketed largely at customers still building up wealth - in recent months, or have hinted launches it in the press. </li><li>At a moment when every last bell and whistle is a differentiator in a zero-commission moment, brokerages have been plowing resources into building out fractional-share trading. </li><li>We spoke with nearly a dozen insiders and execs about the feature's rise in mainstream retail investing to understand who wins, who loses, and what it says about the industry today.</li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/prime">Visit BI Prime for more stories</a>.</li></ul><p>Life moves fast in the discount brokerage universe, where every announcement and product launch sparks a new arms race.</p><p>The chain reactions can be swift. Interactive Brokers said last September it would roll out a zero-commission trading offering for US stocks and ETFs, a move that's eaten into the firm's revenue. <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/charles-schwab-td-ameritrade-interactive-brokers-e-trade-cut-fees-2019-10">Competitors</a> raced to match it. </p><p>Rivals came out with their own announcements in the days that followed, spurring sharp share price moves in brokerage names. It <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/interactive-brokers-ceo-insiders-on-strategy-zero-commissions-2020-2">ultimately upended</a> the industry, culminating in Charles Schwab's announcement weeks later that it planned to <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/inside-26-billion-charles-schwab-td-ameritrade-deal-2019-11">buy TD Ameritrade</a> in the largest brokerage deal on record.</p><p>A similar domino effect is playing out across the business, with buzz and fast follows around another move aimed at a generation of customers still building up wealth: fractional-share trading.</p><p>At a time when some of the most popular stocks are at all-time highs, fractional-share trading allows customer exposure to companies they might not typically be able to afford whole shares in. Consider shares of Amazon, trading this week north of $2,000.</p><p>To be sure, trading stock slivers has been available in different forms for years, mainly via dividend reinvestment plans (DRIPs.)</p><p>But for the first time, firms are <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/brokers-robinhood-charles-schwab-fractional-stock-trading-2019-12">executing fractional share trades</a> in real-time, versus a complex trading method that firms typically carried out once a day. Interactive Brokers, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/robinhood-stock-trading-app-rolling-out-fractional-share-trading-2019-12">Robinhood</a> and <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/fidelity">Fidelity</a> have launched a real-time offering in recent months.</p><p><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/charles-schwab">Charles Schwab</a>, the biggest publicly-traded discount broker, has said its set to introduce fractional shares in the spring, but has not elaborated on its plans. </p><p>But unlike zero-commission trades, this battle didn't involve just a price tag - it adds a layer of complexity for the brokerages and potential added costs to capture what are by nature relatively small-dollar trades, which could cost customers as little as a dollar.</p><p>"When the client goes in and says, 'I want to buy some Apple,' they're clicking the dollar button instead of shares when they place the trade. They're choosing to transact in that way," Scott Ignall, the head of retail brokerage at Fidelity, told us. "We think it's a really powerful piece of functionality, and we're seeing people vote with their feet on that."</p><p>As opposed to axing online trading commissions, trading fractional shares in real-time has required a heavier lift - and spend. Firms are either taking the splitting up of shares on themselves, or working with firms like DriveWealth and Apex Clearing, while big market makers steer clear for the time being. </p><p>We spoke with nearly a dozen insiders and executives about the feature's rise in mainstream retail investing to understand who wins, who loses, and what it says about the industry today. </p><h2>Targeting a younger demo </h2><p>Fidelity, the privately held, Boston-based financial services behemoth, said in late January that it would immediately begin rolling out real-time fractional share trading.</p><p>In an interview, Fidelity's Ignall said his team began building out the capability in summer 2019, months before it announced <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/fidelity-eliminates-online-trading-commissions-2019-10">zero-commission trades</a>, and that the two features were unrelated. He called the feature a "break-even" operation, adding that the firm does not intend to generate revenue from the fractional trades.</p><p>He's now seeing "activity ramp up every day," but declined to provide adoption figures among the firm's 23 million brokerage accounts. Ignall, who joined Fidelity six years ago, said that his team had built out "a very complex order-entry engine" to handle the transactions, and that part of the reason for the launch was attracting younger customers.</p><p>"The bar is being reset on digital experiences every day," he said. "The financial services industry needs to keep up with that." </p><p>The feature highlights the lengths to which firms have gone to bring a new, younger set of clients in the door - who might one day pay for premium offerings, like wealth management fees - as stocks hit all-time highs and fewer large companies execute stock splits.</p><p>To offer real-time fractional-share trading, some brokerages have chosen to hold an inventory of stocks in order to immediately fill customers' fractional orders. </p><p>Some insiders we spoke with said the process of holding shares of sometimes volatile stocks could pose a risk. Others dismissed any chance of meaningful systematic risk due to the small amount brokerages would likely be holding to meet customer demand. </p><p>Terry Hendershott, a professor at the Haas School of Business at University of California, Berkeley, told Business Insider fractional shares essentially forge diversified portfolios by the very nature of the small stock slivers, therefore the risk taken on by brokers in this kind of offering as rather small.</p><p>In his eyes, the high price of stocks and low cost of building out the technology has spurred the feature's spread. </p><p>"It's hard to see how this is going to be a big money-maker right from the get-go," said Hendershott, who previously served as the chair of the Nasdaq's Economic Advisory Board. </p><p><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/interactive-brokers-ceo-insiders-on-strategy-zero-commissions-2020-2">Interactive Brokers</a>, the Connecticut-based brokerage, was the first of its large competitors to roll out the feature when it announced the offering last fall. The firm said that Virtu, the market-making giant, clears some of Interactive Brokers' fractional trades, but figures around that trade volume is not tracked. </p><p>"All fractional share orders (like regular orders) get executed at the best price available for the IBKR Pro service level, and are sold to market makers for IBKR Lite client orders," Steve Sanders, the executive vice president of marketing and product development, said in a statement.</p><p>Speaking to us about the catalyst for launching fractional shares, chairman and former chief executive Thomas Peterffy told us recently: "Many of the '<a href="https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/favorite-millennial-faang-stocks-panel-shows-facebook-netflix-unloved-2019-9-1028541336">FANG</a>' stocks are rising in price and not splitting them, as used to be the convention of Wall Street, when a stock would go much above $100."</p><p>"In relatively small portfolios where the owners would like to allocate their money among several issues, they cannot afford to buy whole shares," he added. </p><h2>The brokerages' ambitions </h2><p>Robinhood, the California-based trading app popular with younger investors, built out its offering when it brought clearing capabilities in-house. So far, only some users have access to the feature. </p><p>The startup is handling fractional trading in-house as opposed to working with a clearing brokerage, something that sets it apart among fintechs. Robinhood <a href="https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/robinhood-launches-in-house-clearing-service-continues-conquest-to-become-amazon-of-personal-finance-2018-10-1027604980">chose to self-clear in October 2018</a>, having previously worked with Apex Clearing, which services some of the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ceo-of-apex-clearing-talks-about-the-future-of-wealth-management-2019-3">most popular fintechs</a>. </p><p>A Robinhood spokesperson declined to comment specifically on the build-out process, or precisely how many users currently have access to the feature. Similarly, Fidelity is also rolling out the capability gradually.<strong>  </strong></p><p>Abhishek Fatehpuria, a product manager at the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/robinhood-series-e-7-billion-valuation-2019-7">$7.6 billion startup</a>, told Business Insider in December that fractional shares was something Robinhood thought about "for a while," but declined to provide additional details. </p><p>The startup isn't the only one that's tight-lipped when it comes to the feature.</p><p><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/charles-schwab">Charles Schwab</a>, founder of the eponymous firm, told Bloomberg News in November the firm planned to introduce fractional shares in the spring, according to a video <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2020-02-19/this-is-the-index-charles-schwab-uses-for-his-kids-video">interview</a> published on Wednesday.</p><p>A company spokesperson said "we do expect to launch fractional shares soon," though did not provide a firm timeline for launch. </p><p>TD Ameritrade, which Charles Schwab said it would buy for <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/inside-26-billion-charles-schwab-td-ameritrade-deal-2019-11">$26 billion in a deal</a> set to close later this year, has given no indication it will jump into the fractional-shares waters either. A spokesperson said that "we are always evaluating new products and services based on client feedback."</p><p><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/charles-schwab-td-ameritrade-deal-reports-prompt-analyst-questions-2019-11">E-Trade</a>, the smallest of the major discount brokerages by market capitalization, does not currently offer it. A company spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment around whether it was a product in the works.</p><p>Brokers have been cagey about many fronts on the broker wars, given the intensely competitive nature of the business. </p><h2>For fintechs, an opportunity in real-time trades </h2><p>Before larger firms and Robinhood embraced the feature, some smaller fintechs had tacked it on as an offering. M1, Stash, SoFi, and <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/square">Square</a>'s Cash App are among the fintechs that let users trade fractional shares, though not all offer real-time trading.</p><p>But the concept of executing fractional share trades in real-time is pretty new. Traditionally, fractional trading wasn't done in real-time but instead handled in batches. </p><p>A fintech would collect orders for fractional shares throughout the day, choosing a specific time to round up to the nearest whole number and put in an order.</p><p>Once executed, the orders would be broken up on the back-end. </p><p>The push for real-time fractional share trading, meaning an order is executed immediately when a customer puts it in, has led to more complexity. In order to fill a fractional share in real-time, a firm must hold an inventory of stocks, essentially creating a market.  </p><h2>The players powering fractional trades</h2><p>But not every firm is willing or capable of taking on that task itself - that's where a player like DriveWealth comes in.</p><p>The fintech, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/steve-cohens-vc-firm-led-a-21-million-investment-in-a-startup-that-wants-to-power-free-stock-trading-2018-4">which is backed by Point72 Ventures</a> and Route 66 Ventures, serves as a clearing brokerage for fintechs in the wealth management space. It's also zeroed in on the rise of fractional share trading in real time, touting the service atop its website.</p><p>John Shammas, chief product officer at DriveWealth, told Business Insider that more than 90% of its client base, which includes <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/moneylion-launching-stock-trading-2020-fintech-2019-12">MoneyLion</a>, Cash App, and Revolut, consistently trades in fractional shares. </p><p>Shammas said the firm has an internal tool called "the fracker" that balances DriveWealth's inventory of stocks to ensure they hold as little as possible while still being able to manage customer's orders throughout the day.</p><p>"We've seen partners try to do it themselves in the past on platforms, and besides the risk it's also just messy having to manage all of that, buying and selling the inventory count themselves," he told Business Insider. "So that's what we really wanted to automate."</p><p>DriveWealth tries to keep its inventory at about one share for each stock throughout the day, though Shammas said those numbers tend to rise early in the trading day when activity is high. The fracker can allow DriveWealth to build up its inventory if it wanted to, but for now Shammas said the goal is to minimize risk.</p><p>While offering fractional share trading is an important feature for DriveWealth's customers, Shammas said the revenue generated via actually trading in a fractional way is "pretty insignificant" - but that could change as business grows.</p><p>"There's probably a point where there is so much volume where it's a real revenue line item for us," he said.</p><p>DriveWealth isn't alone in seeing opportunity in offering fractional-share trading for fintechs.</p><p>Apex, which has worked with <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/betterment">Betterment</a> and <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/stash">Stash</a>, has created its own offering. Bill Capuzzi, the chief executive of Apex, told Business Insider the company spent the better half of 2019 working on offering fractional shares in real-time. </p><p>Part of that was understanding how to manage an inventory of fractional shares in real-time. Apex also worked on being able to offer it through an application programming interface (API), Capuzzi said, which is the method that most fintechs prefer to consume information.</p><p>Capuzzi said building out a real-time fractional shares offering was a product of customer desire as opposed to any potential revenue opportunity. Ideally, he'd like to maintain a perfectly hedged book at all times, holding as little inventory as possible.</p><p>"There's risk for me, as Apex, to hold those securities because they're obviously dynamic and the prices change," Capuzzi said. "There's so much that goes into being a market-maker and so much risk, that I think it's just dangerous for people to take that on."</p><h2>Squaring fractional shares and market makers </h2><p>How do the market makers - the large trading firms tasked with providing liquidity to the wider market, particularly for retail customers, along with price discovery and managing risk - fit into the equation? </p><p>It's a difficult question. Nobody knows how much fractional-share trading it would take to make it a worthwhile venture for market makers to pursue trying to build out some type of fractional share service, and none of the brokerages have publicly reported what type of volume they've seen from fractional shares. </p><p>Also, most brokerages and fintechs already have agreements in place to sell their customers' order flow to market makers as opposed to going directly to exchanges. </p><p>Regardless of whether a firm chooses to fractionalize shares or not, most brokerages will still source liquidity from market makers, as has been the case for years. </p><p>"Our goal is to help our brokerage clients create the best possible trading experience for retail investors by providing price improvement and exceptional execution for their orders," Joe Mecane, head of execution services at <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/citadel-securities">Citadel Securities</a>, told Business Insider in an email. "We hope that fractional share trading will create even more opportunities for retail investors to participate in the market and we are committed to helping them trade at the best prices when they do."</p><p>"Fractional share trading is an innovative, market-led solution that makes high-priced stocks accessible to more investors," a <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/virtu">Virtu</a> spokesperson said. </p><p>As for the actual exchanges, it seems unlikely they'd be open to allowing stocks to be traded fractionally on their own marketplaces. </p><p>Even <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/cboe">Cboe Markets</a>, which is working on pushing through changes around how equity markets are structured, such as the handling of odd-lots - that is, orders of less than 100 shares - doesn't seem open to the idea.</p><p>Edward Tilly, the exchange group's chairman, president and chief executive, dismissed listing fractional shares at an event in January that Business Insider attended.</p><p>"Buy one share and be protected, rather than breaking them up," Tilly said.  </p>

Insiders explain how fractional-share trading went from fringe to must-have - and who's actually doing it in an industry where everyone wants to be an early mover

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>President Donald Trump, in the first significant test of his legislative clout, sought to reassure the public - and maybe himself - about the future of the healthcare bill he has now firmly put himself behind.</p><p>"Despite what you hear in the press, healthcare is coming along great. We are talking to many groups and it will end in a beautiful picture!" Trump tweeted Wednesday.</p><p>In a wild week, the future of America's healthcare system suddenly became a bit clearer - and a lot messier at the same time - with the introduction of the GOP's American Health Care Act.</p><p>The bill would repeal and replacement huge swaths of the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare, and affect millions of Americans' health insurance. It has earned the <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/paul-ryan-powerpoint-presentation-gop-obamacare-replacement-2017-3">support of House Speaker Paul Ryan</a> and Trump, who have both touted the law as a necessary step to saving the "collapsing Obamacare.</p><p>While the GOP leadership's bill has made a steady advance through Congress, there are a number of potentially fatal challenges awaiting the AHCA in the next few weeks - starting with their own caucus.</p><h4><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/obamacare-repeal-replace-bill-text-2017-3">Check out what exactly is in the GOP's new bill»</a></h4><h2>Swift action</h2><p>Since the Monday night introduction of the bill, the AHCA has passed two major procedural hurdles towards being signed into law.</p><p>The bill was approved by the House Ways and Means and Energy and Commerce committees after a process called "markup." The markups allow House lawmakers to add amendments to the bill and debate its potential effects.</p><p>While Democrats staged marathons in both committees to delay the AHCA or add amendments altering the law - Ways and Means argued the bill for roughly 18 hours, while Energy and Commerce went around 27 hours - the AHCA ultimately passed along unscathed.</p><p>The bill must next go to the House Budget Committee for mark up before it is sent to the full House for a vote.</p><h4><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/will-obamacare-repeal-bill-pass-ahca-2017-3">Check out the full details on the process the AHCA must go through to become law»</a></h4><h2><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div></h2><h2>Attacks from inside the House</h2><p>While the AHCA is moving through the committees, some of its most outspoken criticism has come not from Republicans' opponents, but from within the party itself.</p><p>On the one hand are conservatives in both the House and Senate, who have attacked the bill for being too soft and not fully repealing the ACA. This camp believes that the tax credits for people to buy insurance are an entitlement that will lead to a worsening federal deficit.</p><p>Sen. Rand Paul is in the camp. He has been on a crusade against the AHCA over the past week, attacking it repeatedly in the press and advocating for a simple ACA repeal bill instead.</p><p>"<span>There's one thing that has united Republicans in when we won the House, in 2014 when we won the Senate, and in 2016 when we won the White House. This doesn't divide Republicans, this brings us together, and that is complete repeal, clean repeal," <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/jim-jordan-obamacare-repeal-bill-press-conference-rand-paul-2017-3">Paul said at a press conference on Wednesday.</a></span></p><p><span>Members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus have also opposed the law due to the tax credits. Freedom Caucus leader Rep. Mark Meadows <a href="https://www.axios.com/mark-meadows-current-obamacare-repeal-bill-would-raise-premiums-2309323918.html">even said that he would vote against the law</a> because he believes it will cause health insurance premiums to rise.</span></p><h4><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/conservatives-obamacare-new-plan-good-bad-2017-3">Read more for details on conservatives objections to the AHCA»</a></h4><p>On the other end of the party are Republicans who are worried that the AHCA goes too far in its rollback of Medicaid expansion funding.</p><p>The funding in the ACA has allowed 34 states and the District of Columbia to expand the government program to people making up to 138% of the federal poverty level.</p><p>Most of the concern for this provision comes from the Senate. Four senators wrote a letter to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell just hours before the release of the AHCA saying they would not support any legislation that would affect Medicaid funding.</p><p>Additionally, Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas, a long-time Trump supporter, tweeted on Thursday morning that the Medicaid provision made the bill un-passable in the Senate and that Republicans should just "start over" on the law.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>"House health-care bill can't pass Senate w/o major changes," Cotton tweeted. "To my friends in House: pause, start over. Get it right, don't get it fast."</p><h2>Outside opposition</h2><p>In addition to lawmakers, a number of outside groups have taken shots at the new healthcare bill.</p><p>Conservative groups that have been opponents of Obamacare for years attacked the bill after its release for not going far enough in gutting the ACA.</p><p>Heritage Action, Americans for Prosperity, Club for Growth, the Cato Institute, and more took to calling the legislation "Obamacare lite."</p><p>"This is bad <keyword id="6358883" type="PERSON" weightage="100" keywordseo="Politics">politics</keyword> and, more importantly, bad policy," said Michael Needham, the CEO of Heritage Action, in reaction to the bill's introduction.</p><p>Trump met with the leaders from six major groups on Wednesday night in an attempt to assuage their concerns. Not only did Trump argue for the AHCA - according to a source with knowledge of the meeting, the president <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/trump-obamacare-repeal-back-up-plan-democrats-2017-3">also told those assembled that his backup plan for healthcare</a>, should the new bill fail, would be to let the Obamacare insurance exchanges collapse and blame Democrats.</p><p>Many industry groups also took up the fight against the GOP's bill.</p><p>Medical groups, from the American Medical Association to the American Academy of Family Physicians, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/what-doctors-think-of-house-gop-obamacare-replacement-plan-2017-3">decried the legislation's rollbacks</a> of Medicaid expansion funding and smaller tax credits that could restrict coverage for many Americans.</p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/insurance-lobby-blue-cross-blue-shield-raise-objections-to-trumpcare-2017-3">Insurers also lodged complaints</a>. America's Health Insurance Plans - an interest group representing insurers including Cigna, Humana, and Anthem - recommended changes to the law, as did Blue Cross Blue Shield.</p><p>Finally, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/conservative-media-obamacare-breitbart-drudge-ann-coulter-2017-3">the conservative media also turned on the AHCA</a>. Right-wing <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/breitbart-establishment-trump-this-is-war-obamacare-2017-3">news sites like Breitbart</a> and conservative pundits like Ann Coulter charged it was too weak and did not follow through on the GOP's promise of a full ACA repeal.</p><p>"7 Reasons Why Obamacare 2.0 Is All But Guaranteed to Impose Crushing Costs on Voters, Hurt Trump's Base, And Hand Power Back to the Democrats," blared a headline Friday on Breitbart, which until recently was run by White House chief strategist Steve Bannon.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div></p><h2>Big issues going forward</h2><p>With the strong opposition coming from so many sources, it is clear that the AHCA has big political, procedural, and public relations problems to overcome.</p><p>Politically, the biggest problem appears to be the Republican split on Medicaid expansion reform. While Cotton and others have been fighting for a lighter touch in the changes, conservatives have become even more emboldened in their quest to cut its funding.</p><p>The Republican Study Committee, another conservative caucus in the House, has recommended that the cutoff date for Medicaid expansion funding in its current form be moved up to the end of this year instead of after 2019, a position that is at odds with more moderate members of the Senate. Ryan and especially McConnell must wrangle their members to get the party on board with one plan or another.</p><p>The procedural issue come from the Senate's Byrd Rule. Since the AHCA is taking a path known as budget reconciliation - which only needs a simply majority to pass the Senate and avoids a filibuster - all parts of the law must pertain to the budget.</p><p>A penalty in the AHCA that would allow insurers to charge Americans who do not maintain continuous coverage in the prior year more in premiums does not impact the budget, some analysts and lawmakers believe.</p><p>"The House has an untenable task of trying to craft a bill that will fit through the matrix of the Byrd rule," <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/byrd-rule-obamacare-replacement-trumpcare-senate-2017-3" target="_blank">Rep. Trent Franks said</a>. "It's essentially like trying to force a giraffe through a keyhole. If you get the job done, he looks a little differently on the other side."</p><h4><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/byrd-rule-obamacare-replacement-trumpcare-senate-2017-3">Read more about the Byrd Rule here»</a></h4><p>The reckoning of America's healthcare future comes at a critical time - one at which people may be warming up to the law Republicans have so long promised to repeal. Polls have shown Obamacare at its highest popularity point - and so far, most Americans do not seem to be fans of the repeal process.</p><p>With midterm elections next year, the process has a familiar feel to 2009, when Democrats tried to shepherd through their healthcare law. Anything the Republicans do now could affect their control over Congress. </p><p>Trump seems to know it.</p><p>He said Friday: "This is the time we're going to get it done. We're working together. We have some great results. We have tremendous spirit. And I think it's something that is just going to happen very shortly."</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/sean-spicer-defends-trump-incorrect-tweet-guantanamo-bay-prisoners-credibility-truth-2017-3">'Does the president have a credibility problem?': Watch Spicer defend Trump's incorrect tweet about Guantanamo Bay prisoners</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="B1MXc3YTE6nzV8BE7XXma857xYw9Fgh1" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

'Trumpcare' has passed its first huge hurdles - but there's a very real danger it collapses

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container"><div class="image"><p class="source"><span>Business Insider</span></p></div><p></p></div></p>
<p>Amazon's rumored on-demand streaming service, Amazon Prime Music, launched today.</p>
<p>Amazon Music lets you search through a catalogue of over 1 million songs in addition to a collection of curated playlists. You can stream songs on-demand over Wi-Fi or your data plan, and just like Spotify, you can also download tracks directly to your device for offline playback.</p>
<p>Here's a sense of what the minimalistic interface looks like.<span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> </span><div class="KonaFilter image-container"><div class="image"><p class="source"><span>Business Insider</span></p></div><p></p></div></p>
<p>The streaming service works on pretty much any device you can think of: iPhones, iPads, Amazon Kindle tablets, Android devices, Mac and PC, and there's even a browser version.</p>
<p>You'll need to be an Amazon Prime member to use the service, and there's no "lite" version with radio or baked-in adds; in fact, there's no radio service or advertisements at all. Prime membership costs $99 a year, but that gets you access to Amazon's Prime Instant Video library, free two-day shipping on plenty of items, and the ability to take out books from Kindle's Lending Library.</p>
<p>It's a nice cherry on top of an already solid bundle of services, and that's where the genius of Amazon Music comes into play. Amazon Music is best thought of as a less-impressive and less-comprehensive Spotify Premium, but Amazon is betting it might prove to be the perk that pushes people over the edge and into its Prime membership.</p>
<p>We gave Amazon Music a try on iPhone, iPad, and the web browser player. Here's what it's like:</p>
<p><strong>First, you'll need to sign in to your Amazon Prime account.</strong></p>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container"><div class="image"><p class="source"><span>Business Insider</span></p></div><p></p></div></p>
<p><strong>Since Amazon Music encompasses any of your past Amazon MP3 or Cloud music purchases and puts them all in one place, you can check out your purchased or uploaded music - or just right into streaming.</strong></p>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container"><div class="image"><p class="source"><span>Business Insider</span></p></div><p></p></div></p>
<p><strong>Browsing is a pretty standard experience; you can switch among songs, albums, and playlists. The blue plus buttons will add music or entire albums to a collection called Your Library, which holds all your past Amazon purchases or uploads.</strong></p>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container"><div class="image"><p class="source"><span>Business Insider</span></p></div><p></p></div></p>
<p>The Prime selection is hands-down the weakest part of Amazon Music. 1 million songs may seem like a lot, but when compared with streaming leader Spotify, it just doesn't hold up. Amazon also has yet to forge a deal with Universal Music Group, and the portfolio of hit-makers is noticeably absent.</p>
<p>It will depend on how obscure or mainstream your music tastes are: If you're into the hits, you'll notice a lot of holes; if you're into music that most people haven't heard of, Amazon's lack of robust library will also likely stump you. It's a middle ground that hurts Amazon Music, and only strengthens the idea that Amazon Music is designed to be added icing on the already-frosted cake that is the Prime ecosystem.</p>
<p>The best feature of Amazon Music is the ability to not only save songs to your collection, but to also download them onto your device for offline play. It's a feature commuters and people without data plans have gravitated toward Spotify Premium for in the past, but Amazon Music lets you do it, too. For Spotify Premium users who are also Prime members, it just might be the feature that prompts them to make the jump.</p>
<p>To download a song to your device, you'll first have to save it to your library. After that, you just swipe left and tap "download."</p>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container"><div class="image"><p class="source"><span>Business Insider</span></p></div><p></p></div></p>
<p>Another big focus of Amazon Music is in building playlists and streaming the playlists Amazon curates for you. It's simple enough to add songs to playlists, but for those who commute to work in a car or by subway where service is spotty or nonexistent, you'll need to create a playlist containing only tracks downloaded offline to the device.</p>
<p>Here's a glance at some of the curated playlists.</p>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container"><div class="image"><p class="source"><span>Business Insider</span></p></div><p></p></div></p>
<p>Underneath the hood, Amazon allows you to choose between low-, medium-, or high-quality bit rates for streaming, though it tops out at 256Kbps, whereas Spotify Premium offers 320Kbps. You can also import playlists already on your device (such as the Purchased playlist from any device with iTunes music). There's additional options to increase your cache size, ensure you only stream or download music while connected to Wi-Fi, auto-download any music purchases from Amazon, and (of course) a toggle for broadcasting what you're listening to via Facebook.</p>
<p>There's still plenty of bugs to be worked out. In particular, the Search function is pretty terrible in its current state. More often than not, plugging in an artist or specific song would result in a hit, but once the song, album, or artist was selected, a loading screen would freeze the screen until an error message appeared.</p>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container"><div class="image"><p class="source"><span>Business Insider</span></p></div><p></p></div></p>
<p>At the end of its first day, Amazon Music has proven it's capable of delivering the core on-demand streaming experience people desire. The library of streaming tracks is skeletal, sure, but Amazon has the power to change that, it's just a matter of when.</p>
<p>Most importantly, Amazon Music has chosen the right bundle of features from Spotify to mimic. Apple, on the other hand, failed in this regard with iTunes Radio, which takes from radio-streaming services such as Pandora. People like the ability to search for specific songs, and Amazon Music has hitched itself onto the right train.</p>
<p>The real test will be for those already entrenched in Spotify's ecosystem.</p>
<p>With its monstrous music selection, Spotify is still the best streaming app out there. But it's no longer a no-brainer, and those with a foot in both Amazon and Spotify's camp will need to weigh the ability to cut costs with the very real hit to music selection they would face for making the jump.</p>
<p>Amazon Music will have people legitimately thinking about it, however, and that's a slam-dunk of a first step.</p><p class="tagline">Disclosure: Jeff Bezos is an investor in Business Insider through his
personal investment company Bezos Expeditions.</p>

Amazon Music Is The First Worthy Competitor To Spotify - If You Already Have A Prime Membership

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container float_right click-to-enlarge"><div class="image on-image"><a title_source="Reuters" title_caption="" class="zoomin" href="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/556c7eaa69bedd286ecba7ae-960/apple-ceo-tim-cook-holding-an-apple-watch-5.jpg"><span class="sprites click-to-enlarge-icon" title="Click to enlarge"></span></a><p class="source"><span>Reuters</span></p></div><p></p></div>Apple's business is in excellent shape, especially when it comes to the iPhone. The company delivered <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/apples-growth-could-slow-down-2015-4">a monstrous earnings report in April</a>, revealing that it did $58 billion in revenue in the first three months of the year alone. That's up 23% from the year prior.</p><p>But the driver behind those strong results, the iPhone, might not be enough to keep Apple ahead of the competition in the future.</p><p>Following Google's big annual event, Google I/O, the analysts at Jeffries released a report emphasizing how important cloud services are - and how Google is far ahead of Apple in this space.</p><p>"We continue to believe Apple needs to raise its game in Cloud Services to combat competition from Google in the long term," Jeffries wrote in its most recent note. </p><p>This doesn't have much of an impact on Apple right now, but Jeffries highlights a scenario in the future in which it might. It all boils down to what the main driver behind smartphone sales is.</p><p>Right now, hardware is viewed as one of the most important factors when buying a phone. That is, people look at how the phone looks and feels, the build materials, the quality of the screen, how fast it performs, and so on. This is an area where Apple excels, since it's a hardware-focused company. </p><p>But Apple could be in trouble if the main driver behind device sales becomes the quality of cloud services rather than hardware.</p><p>Here's what Jeffries writes in its latest report (emphasis is our own):</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;">As mobile usage models increasingly migrate to the Cloud, catalyzed by growing adoption of hardware-lite devices like Smartwatches, we expect more of the user experience to be increasingly driven by superior Cloud Services such as Google Now. <strong>This represents a longer term threat to Apple's hardware-centric business model.</strong></p><p>This echoes the same sentiment Jeffries wrote in a lengthier report from November 2014:</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;" dir="ltr">If user perception of device value shifts from device hardware (and software) to Cloud Services, Apple's iOS hardware ASP premium would be at risk...A shift in user perception toward Cloud Services could further challenge Apple's product differentiation<strong>.</strong></p><p>Today, you can get most of Google's core services on the iPhone, including the new <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/google-announces-google-photos-website-and-app-2015-5">Google Photos service</a> with unlimited storage, plus Google Now, Gmail, Chrome, Google Maps, Hangouts, Google Drive, and many more.  </p><p>But what really impressed Google I/O attendees - and the analysts at Jeffries - is how Google plans to tie all of your apps together. This is the killer feature that could eventually make the Android experience smoother than iOS, according to Jeffries. It really shows the potential benefits of Google's cloud services that you'd only be able to get on Android. </p><p>Here's what Jeffries had to say in its most recent note (emphasis is our own):</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;">While we believe Google's Play Store revenues are growing faster (off a lower base) than iOS app store, <strong>Google's Now on Tap signals a more fundamental shift away from a litany of apps powered by disconnected data sources, to a more context-aware and unified Cloud Service that over time could make device-based apps less relevant</strong>. At ~1m apps each, we think the last thing either iOS or Android ecosystems need is new apps. <strong>With fewer apps to install/update, or to switch across, we think user experience could improve dramatically.</strong></p><p>If it's features like Google on Tap, which are largely powered by the cloud and how apps communicate, that drive smartphone sales, Jeffries thinks Apple could face more challenges ahead. This will be even more important as smaller devices, such as smartwatches and fitness bands, become more popular, since they largely rely on taking the information already stored in your Google account or Apple account and relaying bits of data that are most relevant to you on your wrist. </p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/new-omega-globemaster-watch-unboxing-2015-5">Forget the Apple Watch - here's the new watch everyone on Wall Street wants</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="5iaDNwdDrYYMm2yipFb14ndbRkPnemqO" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

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