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June 2, 2017 | NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
23 million people lose health insurance under the House GOP plan
Shaun O'Brien
AFL-CIONOW
Three weeks after members of
Congress voted 217-213 to pass
the so-called American Health
Care Act, they—and we—fi-
nally know how much damage it
will do, and it is not pretty. Con-
gress’ own experts in the Con-
gressional Budget Office said
that the Republican health plan
will cut 23 million people off of
health insurance within a
decade, while cutting taxes by
$992 billion, overwhelming for
the wealthy few and corpora-
tions. Remember, this is the plan
then-presidential candidate Don-
ald Trump promised would pro-
vide “insurance for everybody.”
The biggest hit to health cov-
erage comes from the Republi-
can plan’s attack on Medicaid.
The House-passed bill cuts 14
million people off Medicaid
within 10 years. Many of these
are working people who earn so
little they cannot afford to buy
private coverage or whose em-
ployers do not offer them any
health benefits. They also in-
clude some of the three in five
senior nursing home residents
whose care is paid for by Medi-
caid, the two in five kids who
get access to medical care only
because of Medicaid, and the
nearly half of pregnant women
whose childbirths are covered
by it.
Working people who get
health plans through their jobs
also get hit: 3 million fewer peo-
ple will have workplace cover-
age within a decade. That is be-
cause the Republican plan gets
rid of the Affordable Care Act
requirement that medium and
large employers offer their full-
time workers affordable, com-
prehensive health benefits or
risk paying a penalty. It also
makes permanent the so-called
“Cadillac Tax” on decent, mid-
dle-class health benefits, which
the CBO previously has esti-
mated will cause some employ-
ers to stop providing health ben-
efits.
This does not take into ac-
count the additional damage that
Trump’s new budget will inflict
on Americans’ health care. Re-
leased on May 23, his budget
cuts an additional $610 billion
from Medicaid over 10 years
and likely will cause millions
more people to lose health cov-
erage. It also cuts $5.8 billion
from the Children’s Health In-
surance Program, which pro-
vides access to health care for
6.3 million children whose fam-
ilies do not qualify for Medicaid
but do not earn enough to pay
for private insurance.
How many more people will
lose coverage is not nearly the
whole story. The House Repub-
lican plan jacks up the cost of
buying individual health insur-
ance for many people, espe-
cially older Americans ages 50
to 64 with lower incomes. CBO
estimates that a 64-year-old
earning $26,500 in 2026 will see
her out-of-pocket premium in-
crease between 700 percent and
847 percent because of the Re-
publican plan.
The House bill includes an
age tax that lets insurers charge
older Americans five times as
much as young adults. It lets in-
surance companies set much
higher premiums for some peo-
ple who have medical condi-
tions, like diabetes and cancer,
to penalize them for going with-
out coverage for two months or
more, if a state chooses to allow
this kind of price discrimination.
It does not matter if you lost
coverage because you lost a job
or could not afford it. The House
plan also cuts premium help for
moderate- and low-income peo-
ple, especially older people. It
also eliminates any requirement
that coverage be affordable,
whether it is from an insurance
company or your employer.
On top of this, the Republican
plan also increases what many
people have to pay on top of
their premiums when they actu-
ally get medical care. It elimi-
nates the ACA’s help paying de-
ductibles, co-pays and co-insur-
ance for people struggling to
make ends meet. It lets states get
rid of the basic benefit package
of essential health benefits,
meaning more kinds of treat-
ment will not be covered at all,
or there will be no limit on what
you have to pay for those treat-
ments out of your own pocket.
It also pushes people into less
comprehensive health plans that
charge even bigger deductibles,
co-pays and co-insurance.
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