The Congressional Budget Office published its initial analysis of the recklessly passed House Republican health insurance reform bill this week. The CBO confirms the read of almost everyone other than smug and desperate Republicans that the House Republicans have failed to produce a plan that meets Donald Trump’s professed criteria of “insurance for everybody… much less expensive and much better.”
Over ten years, the House GOP plan, the AHCA, will leave 23 million more Americans without health insurance than current law, the ACA, will. In predictable Republican fashion, the AHCA hits lower-income people hardest, by repealing the ACA Medicaid expansion and capping growth in federal Medicaid payments for most children and nondisabled adults.
The March version of the bill actually separated 24 million Americans from their health insurance, but gaining that million costs the AHCA $32 billion, a fifth of the deficit reduction the March bill could claim. Using those numbers, I speculate that keeping those 23 million Americans insured under the AHCA would cost $736 billion, which would increase the deficit $617 billion.
Even if the GOP approved spending that money, the insurance those 23 million (and millions of the rest of us) would keep would cover less. Out-of-pocket costs and deductibles go up, annual and lifetime limits go down, and fewer conditions and procedures (like “maternity care, mental health and substance abuse benefits, rehabilitative and habilitative services, and pediatric dental benefits“) are covered.
Premiums will go down for some people in states that take advantage of the AHCA’s exemptions, but again, the advantages accrue more to folks making more money:
Under the House Republican health care plan, fewer Americans get insurance, many Americans pay more for insurance, and the lucky Americans paying less for insurance get crappier policies that leave them paying more for health services.
In other words, Trumpcare is substantially less cost-effective than Obamacare.
Let’s not even pretend this is a healthcare bill. It is, and always has been, a tax cut bill for millionaires and billionaires masquerading as a healthcare bill. If it’s sole purpose is to cut dollars for healthcare – it’s not a healthcare bill. Democrats should label it the American Millionaire Tax Cut Act and call it that at every opportunity.
Looks like this will be great for the doctors and hospitals across South Dakota as they seem pretty comforted by the news. Of course most of the doctors are millionaires already so why would they not loves them a tax cut. Rural hospitals and those doctors do not want to seem uppity so they will go along with it all, right up to the closure date of the facility. Nursing homes and assisted living, sometimes you just have to send grandma and gramps home to be assisted, but no one is complaining there, so it is all good. The Back to the 30’s Health Plan, sounds so Hooverite, but very appropriate with the Make America Great Again crowd. All we need now is dust storms.
The Pew Research Center has determened that …
~ It is abundantly clear that Trump and his party possess a deep disdain for sick people, the poor and other vulnerable members of American society and wish to do them harm. They believe that babies and children with serious illnesses deserve their fate, and that those who have “done the things to keep their bodies healthy” and still develop chronic diseases like cancer have done things the “wrong way”.
http://www.salon.com/2017/05/04/the-pro-life-party-has-become-the-party-of-death-new-research-on-why-republicans-hate-poor-and-sick-people/
The first dust storms in the country, South Dakota awaits the hammer drop. NOem and the gang will blame Macron and the French or some other impossible sequence that they will try to use to cover their sorry arse’s. Not a big enough sheet to cover though, even if they take off the pointed hat. This is their baby, courtesy of the man child.
“In an interview with me this morning, Brad Wilson, the president and CEO of Blue Cross Blue Shield North Carolina, said flat out that the failure of the Trump administration and Congress to guarantee that these subsidies will continue is why rates are going to soar for hundreds of thousands of people in his state.
“The failure of the administration and the House to bring certainty and clarity by funding CSRs has caused our company to file a 22.9 percent premium increase, rather than one that is materially lower,” Wilson told me. “That will impact hundreds of thousands of North Carolinians.” The company says it has approximately half a million customers getting individual insurance via Obamacare.
“We filed a 22.9 rate increase for 2018 based on the assumption that the CSRs will not be in place,” Wilson also said. “The rate increase would be 8.8 percent if the CSRs were guaranteed for 2018. Because they are not, the rate is 22.9 percent.” […]
“The effect will be the same across the country,” Wilson predicted. “Rates will be materially higher if CSRs aren’t funded.” Indeed, a recent Kaiser Family Foundation study found that insurers would likely boost premiums on average nationally by 19 percent on some plans to compensate for it if the CSRs are halted.”
Well there you have it, Back to the 30’s when you just died quickly, none of this lingering around pro life nonsense. The latest industry that tribal republicans are looking to invest in is apples and portable kitchens for the soup, those are easy to sell and will be somewhat affordable or even free (with a prayer of course).
* determined
Any health insurance company that hasn’t diversified itself by now should face a revolt from it’s stockholders. These companies may try to pass the buck to Republican malfeasance but the fact remains … “Making money off sick people is evil and not tolerated in civilized countries throughout the free world.” It’s way past time for national healthcare. Buying things we all use, as a group, is always cheaper.
Trump’s budget in general is devastating to Pine Ridge and other reservations:
http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/27/politics/indian-reservation-trump-budget/index.html
Great article, ‘Schach … So sad, though. Why aren’t the majority in South Dakota inherently proud of these Native Americans whose land their anglo ancestors stole with murder and deceit? It’s as if by claiming to be “social conservatives” they can justify ignoring the only thing about the state that’s truly unique. The Native American culture. God knows, the predominate German culture has devolved into a selfishness. Maybe these descendants of the “land thieves” just need something poor to try and feel superior to … to help them feel better about their own misery?
Regarding your article. I would think that there seems to be no solution other than to raise the lease payments effective immediately to help take care of the short comings. Perhaps tripling them for starters, like the Insurance companies will now do because of the new trump government. Raising taxes is something the tribal republicans understand so it is only tit for tat that a real tribal government should do the same. I can tell you this, foreign investors are always looking for land to utilize for livestock production as they have shown in Wyoming 314,000 acres of agricultural land and South Dakota with 113,000 agricultural acres as of 2011 so the figures are obviously higher now https://www.fsa.usda.gov/Internet/FSA_File/afida_thru_12312011.pdf. Maybe that might bring in the necessary funding to survive as the federal government is clear they will not honor their contracts.
Trump doesn’t like sick people. People that get sick are losers in his mind. Trump likes winners. He likes people that don’t get sick. Trump thinks if you can’t afford to get sick, you shouldn’t get sick. Sign yourself up for Trumpdon’tcare.
There seems to be another product for the trumpsters to avoid https://boingboing.net/2017/05/25/mexico-markets-trump-themed-tp.html It is safe to say that the entire world sees him as a _________________________
Jerry, South Dakota doctors and hospitals are not o.k. with Trumpcare. The SD Association of Healthcare Organizations opposed the March AHCA and the May AHCA even harder:
The AHCA isn’t good for business. It’s not good for regular businesses, in that it leaves more workers without coverage, which means more workers who get sick and don’t get treatment and thus don’t show up at the office. The AHCA is also bad for the hospital business.
Seriously, what about nursing homes? Do you ever visit them? Do you ever think about your future and what could happen if you had a stroke (don’t have to be an old fart for one of those)? Have a clue on the cost of human warehousing while waiting out the clock? What about an accident that leaves you partially paralyzed and of course, disabled? Don’t look to your choices for governor of the State of South Dakota to do anything but put you in the street.
“Any doubts about the senseless cruelty underlying the health care agenda put forward by President Trump and Congress were put to rest last week by two government documents. The fantasy that Mr. Trump intends to fight for the health of long-suffering working people should be similarly interred. …
Consider the fate of Medicaid, a program that provides health insurance to more than 74 million people, among them 60 percent of nursing home residents and millions of people with disabilities. Trumpcare would slash Medicaid spending by $834 billion over 10 years, according to the C.B.O. The president’s budget would take a further $610 billion from the program under the pretext of reforming it. Taken together, this amounts to an estimated 45 percent reduction by 2026 compared with current law, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities says.”
Think of that for a moment. 60% of nursing home residents! Thousands of human beings in nursing homes in South Dakota https://books.google.de/books?id=OyELE0tCcf4C&pg=PA50&lpg=PA50&dq=how+many+medicaid+beneficiaries+are+in+south+dakota+nursing+homes&source=bl&ots=tak9G0rUeW&sig=AxjICtZjZzc0H8E93WZLNgD7CQ4&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwivppOM4JLUAhXj7oMKHU1HBC4Q6AEIQzAF#v=onepage&q=how%20many%20medicaid%20beneficiaries%20are%20in%20south%20dakota%20nursing%20homes&f=false
will be denied a bed in the nursing homes that are already there. These people have spent down their entire savings and are destitute. They have worked their entire lives with the hope of dying with dignity and government has decided that they should not even have that.
Who do you personally know that is already in bad shape both physically and financially that would then have to be taken care of by family (if they have any)? This is why those hated liberals fight, in one word, dignity.
Cory, that they oppose the trumpcare is on a blog post. Nothing against blog posts of course, but these guys have the money to really show they are against it. Where are the billboards and the radio and the tee vee spots to show their position. In other words, their complaints are pretty well muted, why is that I wonder? Seems that if this is really against their beliefs and its seems like they have a lot of money to build hospitals or additions to existing, a couple of quid for an advertising campaign should be in the works.
Asking a Republican about how to increase the insurance pool – in order to reduce costs nationwide – is like trying to talk to your neighbor’s barking dog before it quiets down.
Getting more people into the pool is only part of the problem. Reducing the costs of delivering the actual health care and increasing preventative measures are the larger ones.
The reduction of the cost of delivering actual healthcare is the reason for healthcare reform in the first place. First, identify the problem. People that are sick and need healthcare that cannot afford it like the guy that uses 1 million a month in goods and services as I write this. How ya gonna put him in a pool and not drain it immediately?
Second, preventive healthcare, no getting away with not giving children their inoculations no matter what religious hocus pocus you present. You live here, you cannot contaminate the rest of us. If you are over 50, you get an upper GI and the colonoscopy every 5 years or more if there is a discovery. The colon cancer is very expensive and somewhat preventable with preventive care
Third, put the risk corridor back into the ACA/Obamacare that little Marco took out. That will bring back Wellmark, Dakotacare and probably a few others to this market to make it even more competitive.
Fourth, as this plays out, start to utilize insurance companies as administrators period. Get them out of the insurance game and just into the admin game, like what happens with Medicare presently.
Then for the state of South Dakota and its dumber than dumb leadership and its equally stupid tribal republican legislature, Expand the Damn Medicaid.
Great assessment, Jerry.