The House version of TrumpCare has many things wrong with it. Let’s start with the process used to approve it. The process was so rushed that many Congressional Representatives admitted that they had not even read the bill. What’s more the vote was rushed before the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office could complete its analysis of the bill’s impact. That report has now been completed and below are some findings that illustrate how the bill will impact Americans.
- 14 million individuals will lose coverage in 2018, when the bill would go into effect; 20 million individuals will lose coverage by 2020 and 24 million will lose coverage by 2026
- Increase costs for the average enrollee by $3,174 in 2020. Cost increases would be much bigger for families at all income levels and as the table below reveals, cost increases would impact low-income individuals and seniors most of all
- The impact would be particularly severe on older individuals. This is because the bill’s tax credits would not nearly compensate for its changes in age rating. The bill would increase costs for individuals age 55 to 64 by $8,329 in 2020.
- Lower-income individuals would also be hit hard. This is because the bill’s tax credits are unrelated to income and the bill eliminates cost-sharing subsidies. The bill would increase costs for individuals with income below 250 percent of the federal poverty level by $4,815 in 2020.
- TrumpCare also dismantles Medicaid, which now covers about 74 million people across the country. It strips more than $800 billion from the program and ends the guarantee that it will be funded according to need
- Provide a $300 billion tax break to the top 2 percent and hundreds of billions more to the big drug and insurance companies that are ripping off the American people.”
- The 10 states where enrollees would face the highest cost increases would be Alaska, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Arizona, Wyoming, Nebraska, West Virginia, Tennessee, Alabama, and Montana (listed in descending order of cost increases). Every single one of these states was won by the GOP during the 2016 presidential election and all are heavily GOP in House and Senate.
While the GOP claims that TrumpCare would protect and cover those with pre-existing conditions, this is simply not the care. While the bill did create an $8B ‘risk pool’ purportedly to provide coverage for those with pre-existing conditions. But the problem is two-fold: 1) the amount is entirely inadequate and 2) the bill puts states in the position of putting those with pre-existing conditions in separate pools of coverage that draw on this figure. How will states deal with inadequate funding for the risk pool? From Truthout. “In Texas, for example, a patient with hemophilia would have to pay premiums for an entire year before the high-risk pool would begin to cover his treatment,” explains Sarah Kliff at Vox. “That’s a big deal: Hemophilia is an expensive condition to treat, with medical bills upward of $150,000 annually.” The Truthout article is extraordinary. It presents the human side of this issue, both in terms of laying bare the incredibly inhumane elements of the bill and in terms of those who would suffer should it pass the Senate. Click here to read the full article.
Finally, if you want to hear from a North Carolina mother who would no longer be able to afford health coverage for her child, a child with a life threatening condition, click here. This is not a direct link to the video, but a link to our Retake Our Democracy Facebook page where it is posted. Keep in mind, this same story will play out millions of times across America in 2018 if TrumpCare passes the Senate. The table below provides the estimated increases in cost of coverage by state with columns for individuals and families, seniors, low-income individuals. It is shocking that low-income individuals and seniors will bear the greatest burden if this plan is implemented.
- We estimate that the House bill would increase costs for the average enrollee by $3,174 in 2020, when the new program would go into effect. The impact would be particularly severe for older individuals age 55 to 64, whose costs would increase by $8,329. Individuals with income below 250 percent of poverty would see their costs increase by $4,815.