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ACTION: TrumpCare By Another Name: “Graham-Cassidy”
TAKE ACTION IMMEDIATELY - NO EXCUSES: Read the following from Indvisible: https://www.trumpcareten.org/ - register an event, find an event, click on your state to get a the toolkit and script you need to call your Congresspeople.
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We are faced with legislation in the Senate referred to as Graham-Cassidy which is supposedly a healthcare bill despite its objective being to eliminate healthcare for as many citizens as possible. First, a brief reminder of efforts by Republicans and Trump to destroy the healthcare system already in 2017:
--On May 4th, the House GOP voted to take healthcare away from at least 23 million Americans according to the Congressional Budget Office report, which came after the vote was rushed through.
--A group of Republican Senators operated in secrecy on the Senate's version of a "healthcare" bill to take away said healthcare from nearly 10% of the country and cut taxes on the wealthiest. In late June, they unveiled a plan to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act with no healthcare for millions of individuals. They fortunately failed to garner 50 votes and it failed in its current form in mid-July.
--On July 27, 2017, the Senate rejected the latest Affordable Care Act repeal effort, again seemingly derailing the GOP campaign to strip millions of citizens of healthcare.
--Throughout 2017, Republicans have actively sabotaged Obamacare by stripping reimbursements to insurers which forces them to leave exchanges and ending the marketing of the healthcare plans. Republicans do not care if you have healthcare.
The bill, introduced Sept. 13 by Sens. Bill Cassidy, R-La., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., with little hope of going anywhere, has gained steam in its short life and now looks like it may actually come to a vote in the Senate in the coming days.
The bill will result in millions of people losing their insurance coverage. "The Graham-Cassidy plan would take health insurance coverage away from millions of people, eliminate critical public health funding, devastate the Medicaid program, increase out-of-pocket costs and weaken or eliminate protections for people living with pre-existing conditions," says Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association.
Graham-Cassidy deconstructs all of the major programs created by the Affordable Care Act, gathers up the money and hands it over to states to run their own health care programs. It gets rid of both the subsidies that help people buy individual health insurance policies and the reimbursements to insurance companies for offering price breaks on copayments and deductibles to the lowest-income customers. It rolls back the Obamacare Medicaid expansion that was adopted by 31 states and Washington, D.C., and it eliminates the Basic Health Program that was created under the ACA...
Here is how certain groups of our country will be impacted specifically:
1) People with pre-existing conditions: “There would be no guarantee of coverage for people with pre-existing conditions. Each state that accepts federal block grant funding could waive the ACA’s rules for covering the 10 essential health benefits and other consumer protections. Insurers could take health status into account and raise rates for people with pre-existing conditions in those states.”
2) People with disabilities (note that most Medicaid money go to people with disabilities): “The bill would get rid of Medicaid expansion money by 2026 and convert all Medicaid spending to a per-capita cap, which means that federal money per person will be lower than it is now. States would have to decide whether to make up that funding, trim services or limit who can get Medicaid.”
3) Working poor on Medicaid: “The bill would end the Medicaid expansion by 2020, and then would convert federal Medicaid spending to a fixed amount per person. The bill would keep the federal matching rate lower than projected medical needs, so federal funds per person would decline. States would have to decide whether to make up that funding, trim services or limit who can get Medicaid.”
4) Adults under 65: “The bill repeals major provisions of the Affordable Care Act, including the Medicaid expansion, the individual and employer mandates and the subsidies to help people afford insurance. It takes money from those programs and turns it into block grants for each state to set up its own health care system. There’s no CBO score for the bill, but the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities says the block grants would provide $239 billion less through 2026 that the spending forecast for Medicaid expansion and marketplace subsidies. It would cut the growth in the basic Medicaid program about $175 billion over the same period. States are encouraged to seek waivers that would allow insurers to charge more money to those with pre-existing medical conditions.”
5) Low-income nursing home residents: “Skilled nursing care covered by Medicare up to 100 days per illness. Medicaid services or payments to nursing homes could be cut as states see federal funding decline.”
6) People who use mental health services: “Each state that participates in the block grant program could decide how to spend its federal grant money, and could waive requirements to cover mental health care.”
7) People who use Planned Parenthood as their local doctor: “A one-year block would be placed on federal reimbursements for care provided by Planned Parenthood.”
8) Last put not least....the wealthy: “The bill would offer a tax cut to wealthy people by making health savings accounts more generous. The bill boosts the amount people could deposit tax free into an HSA and also would allow people to make tax advantaged catch-up contributions. These would benefit the wealthy more because they pay a higher tax rate.”
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The Congressional Budget Office hasn't completed its analysis yet but many results are in:
...many experts say the bill would have an impact similar to earlier Republican proposals for repealing the Affordable Care Act. Graham-Cassidy would eliminate coverage for many low-income people who gained insurance through the Medicaid expansion and could gut protections for people with existing medical conditions because states would be encouraged to seek waivers from the federal government's rules on what must be covered.
The Center for American Progress says premiums for people with pre-existing conditions could rise by thousands of dollars because states could let insurers charge that population more.
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities says in its own analysis that Graham-Cassidy would lead to 32 million people losing coverage over 10 years. It would cut federal funding for health care by more than $400 billion over 10 years...
Sources:
https://www.indivisibleguide.com/resource/trumpcare-another-name-graham-cassidy/