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Bill USA

(6,436 posts)
Tue Mar 7, 2017, 07:05 PM Mar 2017

The GOP health bill doesnt know what problem its trying to solve - Ezra Klein

http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/3/6/14838122/republican-health-bill-obamacare-replacement


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[font size="3"] Little in politics shocks me. The process House Republicans want to use for their health care bill does. After literally years of complaining Obamacare was jammed down the American people’s throats with insufficient information or consideration, the GOP intends to hold committee votes on their bill [font color="red"]two days after releasing it, and without a Congressional Budget Office report estimating either coverage or fiscal effects[/font]. It’s breathtaking.

If Republicans believed the American people — or even their own legislators — would like the results of a thorough estimate of their proposal’s effects, they would have waited for one. We’ll get a CBO report anyway, of course. My guess is it will say this: The GOP plan will lead to significant declines in coverage (Loren Adler estimates an eye-popping 15 to 20 million people will lose insurance) as well as accelerating the exhaustion of the Medicare trust fund due to the tax cuts. After years of Republicans complaining that co-pays and deductibles were too high in Obamacare,[font color="red"] co-pays and deductibles will be significantly higher under their replacement. The plan will significantly reduce taxes on the rich[/font].

I honestly have no idea what it will do to the deficit — it’s hard to see any short-term reduction, and if there’s a long-term reduction, it will only be due to deep, deep Medicaid cuts, which will mean a correspondingly large increase in the uninsured. It’s worth noting that the GOP’s main idea for reducing health care costs — ending or capping the tax break for employer-provided insurance — has been left out of this legislation. There is simply no theory of cost control in this bill at all.

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The plan is strikingly regressive compared to the Affordable Care Act. Cynthia Cox estimates that a 40-year-old making 160 percent of the poverty line would get $4,143 in subsidies under the ACA, but only $3,000 under the GOP plan. By contrast, a 40-year-old making $75,000 would get nothing under the ACA, but $3,000 under the GOP plan.

Hypocrisy is a minor sin in politics, but still, it is remarkable how much of it there is to be found in this legislation. A core Republican complaint when Obamacare was passed was that the law delayed many of its provisions in order to reduce public outcry and manipulate the CBO’s score. The GOP bill is similarly aggressive with such tricks, delaying changes to the Medicaid expansion until 2020 and pushing Obamacare’s tax on expensive insurance plans out until 2025.
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The GOP health bill doesnt know what problem its trying to solve - Ezra Klein (Original Post) Bill USA Mar 2017 OP
Turning it over to the state is the problem #1 Motley13 Mar 2017 #1

Motley13

(3,867 posts)
1. Turning it over to the state is the problem #1
Tue Mar 7, 2017, 07:25 PM
Mar 2017


It s/b single payer.

The insurance companies are winning again, which was the main problem with ACA





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