The House passed its repeal bill earlier this month.
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What would the House GOP bill do? But those cuts are what will drive 23 million Americans off their coverage over the same 10 years, the report, with the bulk of those losing coverage in fiscal 2018. The CBO report indicates that I will not get anywhere near enough in subsidies to be able to replace Medicaid with private health insurance. Sicker folks, and older ones, would face dramatically higher costs for coverage – five times as high for older people – pricing many individuals out of the market altogether, the review found.
The AHCA is also a boondoggle for the rich, slashing $664 billion by repealing or delaying taxes on high-income people, fees imposed on manufacturers, excise taxes enacted under the ACA, and modifying various other taxes in favor of the wealthy.
The Congressional Budget Office outlines a saving of close to $119 billion with the new legislation for over 10 decades. What might be similar is doing away with the Medicaid expansion program.
The CBO reports that the bill could destabilize individual insurance markets in some states, leaving unhealthy Americans unable to buy insurance.
That was a knock on 11th-hour changes Republicans made in the bill to gain conservatives’ votes by letting states get waivers to boost premiums on the ill and reduce coverage requirements.
Although many healthy customers would welcome plans with lower monthly premiums, the high cost of medical care isn’t going down.
The old saying about getting what you pay for still applies. It’s worth noting that Blue Cross also said this week that the exchange was stabilizing because more healthy people were signing up.
That the CBO has been so far off, and for so long, should no longer come as a surprise. Everyone would have catastrophic insurance to protect against true medical emergencies and then use health savings accounts to pay for routine care out of pocket. Unlike many people, I won’t die. For employers, the report underscores just how critical company-subsidized health insurance plans are for efforts to recruit and retain talent, especially among millennials and employees with families. The liberal-leaning Urban Institute said the analysis offered nothing new, calling the House Republican bill a “tax bill paired with Medicaid cuts” to benefit the richest households in the country.
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Acknowledging that it can’t pinpoint which states might seek the waiver, CBO analysts project that one-sixth of the US population reside in states that could choose not to cover essential health services and may opt to charge people with preexising conditions more in in premiums than healthy people. This includes what are called essential health benefits, a list of medical services, such as mental health care or prescription drugs, that plans are required to cover under the current law. People purchasing such plans would be “insured” in name only. If there was an accident or surprise health issue, any one of us might become one of those unfortunate 23 million people uninsured. Twenty Republicans didn’t support the legislation. In fact, a slew of surveys and polls released in the last few weeks have shown that American families are more anxious about paying their healthcare bills than they are about just about anything else, including terrorism, the economy and immigration.
