The Republican Health Care Plan Screws Many To Help Very Few

It looks like Republicans think that America has been demanding a new health care plan which will greatly reduce the number of people who are insured, increase costs for poor and older Americans, destabilize the individual insurance market, and cut taxes for the wealthy. While waiting for the CBO scoring, the Brookings Institute has made their calculations as to how terrible the Republican health care bill is, predicting that at least 15 million people will lose health care coverage:

There is significant uncertainty about exactly how CBO will model these provisions and how it will expect the various provisions to interact with one another. Nonetheless, we conclude that CBO’s analysis will likely estimate that at least 15 million people will lose coverage under the American Health Care Act (AHCA) by the end of the ten-year scoring window. Estimates could be higher, but it’s is unlikely they will be significantly lower.

 

Many will suffer from the cuts to Medicaid. Many of those who purchase private coverage on the exchanges will suffer because of how the subsidies are restructured, based on age as opposed to income and the actual costs of insurance. The Kaiser Family Foundation has posted projections regarding this.

Medical organizations and those representing the elderly including AARP, the American Medical Association and the American Hospital Association have objected to the Republican plan. AARP issued a statement opposing the “House plan that would make changes to our current health care system, such as shortening the life of Medicare, hiking costs for those who can least afford higher insurance premiums, risking seniors’ ability to live independently, and giving tax breaks to big drug companies and health insurance companies.”

The less affluent voters who backed Trump will be hurt by the changes. Of course some people do benefit. “Nearly everyone in the Top 1%, who earn more than $774,000 a year, would enjoy a hefty tax cut, averaging $33,000, according to the non-partisan Tax Policy Center. Those in the Top 0.1% would get an average tax cut of about $197,000.” Insurance companies also benefit:

Obamacare allowed insurance companies to deduct only $500,000 of their executives’ pay as a business expense. The GOP bill would repeal that limitation, starting in 2018.

Top insurers pay their leaders millions in compensation every year so this provision could mean a nice tax savings for the companies.

One excuse given by Republicans for repealing Obamacare is the increased cost of premiums. However, most people receive health care coverage through either government programs or employer programs, which have not had major increases in premiums. The individual market had frequent jumps in premiums, and that has continued, except under Obamacare most people receive subsidies to help cover this. As a consequence, only about three percent of the country is actually facing the increases in premiums which Republicans are using to justify their plan. In return, we receive more comprehensive coverage which cannot be denied based upon medical problems.

As one of the three percent who purchases health insurance without qualifying for subsidies, I certainly do not see the Republicans as doing me any favors. My premiums will be higher under the Republican plan than they are now, and the even bigger problem is that the plan may “threaten the stability of the individual market” per the Brookings report, possibly making it impossible to obtain coverage.