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Republican Plan to Replace ACA is Focused on Gutting Funding For Poor
One would think that the health of our nation’s citizens is a unifying issue. Politicians on both sides of the aisle, however, have used the Affordable Care Act, and ultimately public health, as a partisan political tool at the expense of their constituents.
The ACA, in its infancy (the bulk of programs didn’t go into effect until 2014), has had its share of successes and failures. The Trump administration, instead of bolstering the positive aspects of the ACA while learning from and altering its negative facets, has consistently vowed to “repeal and replace” the ACA, without any substantive alternative plan.
A hastily constructed “outline” of this Republican replacement plan has been met with swift, harsh criticism.
“Obamacare…extended health coverage to 20 million Americans through two main mechanisms. It expanded Medicaid coverage to Americans below or just above the poverty line in states that participated, and it offered income-based tax credits for middle-income people to buy their own insurance. Obamacare was a redistributive law, transferring money from rich to poor.
“The Republican plan would alter both of those programs, changing the winners and losers. It would substantially cut funding for states in providing free insurance to low-income adults through Medicaid. And it would change how tax credits are distributed by giving all Americans not covered through work a flat credit by age, regardless of income.”
The Republicans have also promised to stabilize the healthcare exchanges:
“The outline of the policy proposals did not mention anything about temporarily funding premium tax credits or cost-sharing reductions, which groups like America’s Health Insurance Plans have advocated. AHIP still has not seen any policies that address its main recommendations for stabilizing the marketplaces in 2018”
By proposing to cut the funding mechanism that allows vulnerable individuals to afford coverage, the effort to provide universal healthcare is undermined entirely, which is likely well understood by Republicans. However, their proposed plan allows the ACA-related taxes on the top 1% to be slashed which has been the primary driver behind their hatred of the ACA from the start.
Blue Cross lobbyists expressed alarm that Congress or a federal court might eliminate the cost-sharing subsidies that the government pays insurers to reduce out-of-pocket costs for low-income people. Without these payments, Blue Cross wrote in a primer delivered to congressional offices, consumers will see “significant premium increases in 2018, making coverage even more unaffordable for millions of working Americans.”
ACTION: Do not allow our leaders to play politics with our health. If you agree, call your Representatives and Senators, Republican or Democrat, and urge them to step across party lines to optimize our healthcare system. To block the repeal effort, said Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Senate Democrat, “we need two or three Republicans to join us.”
Sources to learn more on this crucial topic: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/0
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/0
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/09/us/politics/affordable-care-act-health-care-lobby.html?_r=0
http://www.fiercehealthcare.com/aca/health-insurers-not-impressed-by-gop-s-latest-healthcare-plan