Numerous provisions in the Republican bill, the American Health Care Act, would not take effect until 2020. “Adding more than 20 million-plus individuals to uninsured status is not an ideal way to reduce future budget deficits”, said Tom Miller, a conservative health policy expert at the American Enterprise Institute and an ACA critic.
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– Fewer employers would offer health benefits; 2 million fewer workers would have coverage next year, 7 million fewer in 2026.
– The number of uninsured would rise to 24 million in 2026.
Media captionWhat’s in the Republican healthcare bill?
Republicans are appearing to overlook President Trump’s promise to deliver “insurance for everybody”, which the CBO makes clear will not happen if the legislation becomes law.
Are Republicans in Congress genuinely interested in health care or is this shuffle about the name rather than the care?
The Republicans’ American Healthcare Act, the supposed replacement for the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, will save the government more than $300 billion, but it might cost millions of people their health insurance, according to the CBO. That’s no small number. Premiums will be lower.
The Affordable Care Act aimed to help restrain USA healthcare spending, which is about 17% of the nation’s economy, but it has continued to grow faster than inflation.
“In 2013, the CBO estimated that 24 million people would have coverage under Obamacare in 2016”, Spicer noted.
Some are also defending the changes by arguing that older Americans tend to be better able to pay higher premiums than their grandchildren, so it makes sense for older people to pay higher rates given that they tend be less healthy and thus more costly to insurers.
“This is an eye-popping transfer of wealth away from older people, from women and kids, from the most vulnerable, directly into the wallets of the fortunate few”, he said. It simply can not be.
The White House pushed back hard on the report, saying it disagrees “strenuously”. “The fact of the matter is, if you look at that, it would be impossible to have that number occur”, he said.
But there is very, very little margin for error on that front.
At 27% of overall enrollees, consumers ages 55 to 64 represent the biggest share of the roughly 11.5 million enrolled on the state Obamacare marketplaces today, according to a report by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. And that’s if the bill can even get out of the House, which is hardly a guarantee at this point.
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Keeping 50 out of 52 senators onboard – when 13 of them were already skeptical, according to The Post’s whip count – will be immensely hard.
