The ACA and its companion bill, the HCERA ("Health Care
and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010) add up to nearly a thousand
pages.
Plus, the regulations written under the authorization of those two bills
total over 10,000 pages. So if you don't start out with a full repeal, you're
left with thousands of pages still in effect.
The GOP Health care plan is worse than Obamacare. It is
Obamacare 2.0
It maintains the insurance
mandates that are driving the cost of premiums up. They "technically"
remove them, but then replace them.
You
cannot shop for a better plan across state lines.
You cannot simply opt out of
insurance without paying a tax or "penalty."
You cannot choose opt-out and
not pay for health insurance for other people who do not pay for their own. (h/t David on Facebook)
It destroys political capital desperately needed for the rest
of Trump’s first term, particularly pro-American immigration reform. Trump’s election victory wasn’t a once-in-a-generation
election. It was once-in-a-century, or once-in-history. Republicans have one,
brief chance to correct the course the U.S. is heading down and bind up all of
the wounds inflicted on Americans over the decades. There is a small window to
end the era of cheap labor, low wages, mass immigration, hollowed-out
communities, family disintegration, drug addiction, and suicide. Will
Republicans take it and secure their party’s dominance for the next 50
years? Or will they throw it away?
1.It Retains
Requirements That Insurance Cover People With Pre-Existing Conditions.
The key component to
Obamacare was always the nonsensical notion that government could force
insurance companies to cover those with pre-existing conditions.
2. It Creates A Back
Door Mandate. The Republican plan gets rid of the overt Obamacare mandate.
But it does allow insurance companies to charge an elevated 30% fine for those
whose insurance lapses for more than two months at any point in the last 12
months
3. It Creates Individual Healthcare Subsidies.The problem is that
this back door mandate isn’t enough. What about people who are high risk or
have pre-existing conditions, but haven’t bought insurance? We have to give
them money to buy health insurance. Which is what the bill does: it includes an
advanceable, refundable tax credit based on age.
4. It Subsidizes
Medicaid. The Obamacare boondoggle was sold by allowing the federal
government to pick up the tab for Medicaid expansion in the states. This bill
would allow the feds to cover Obamacare Medicaid expansion for three years –
and there’s no way a future Congress will actually cut these subsidies
5. It Subsidizes High-Risk Pools On The State Level. The bill sends
$100 billion to states over the next ten years to help cover those who are high
risk and can’t afford insurance. But it doesn’t do any of the key things
Republicans would want to do, and it actually ends up allowing Democrats to
keep most of what Obama created while simultaneously blaming Republicans for
its shortcomings as well as the budget blowout that will follow
Republicans killing both the individual mandate and the Cadillac tax.
6. The bill’s
provisions increase healthcare costs for Trump voters in critical states. As an analysis conducted by the Washington Post shows, voters in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin will
see their tax credits decrease under Obamacare 2.0.
7. Meanwhile,
the bill is “a gift to illegal aliens,” as conservative author Daniel Horowitz
writes.
Illegals
can get health care through identity
theft and fraud,
because Obamacare 2.0 makes it impossible to check enrollees’ immigration
status. The bill incentivizes further illegal immigration by
encouraging illegals to come to the U.S. to cut into taxpayer-funded
programs meant for citizens. Poll after poll shows Trump’s
immigration policies prioritizing Americans and their problems over foreigners
and their wants are hugely popular with voters. Giving away health
care to illegals, while ramping up the price for Trump’s core voters, is a slap
in the face.
8. The
arbitrary and crushing penalty for not enrolling during the randomly-selected
period will hurt financially struggling voters already fighting to stay
afloat.
As
Avik Roy writes in Forbes, the “continuous coverage” part inflicts a massive cost
increase on those who go without paying for a plan for more than 63
days. “Worse still, the bill contains an arbitrary ‘continuous coverage’
provision, in which those who sign up for coverage outside of the normal open
enrollment period would pay a 30 percent surcharge to the normal insurance
premium,” Roy writes. And you have to pay this for an entire year—which
will not go over well with people struggling to pay for rent, for childcare,
for student loans. In other words, it’s not enough to pay a one-time penalty if
you forget to sign up for your Obamacare 2.0 in time or choose to forgo
insurance altogether.
Read a series of articles on how to fix the U.S. healthcare system once and for all here.
