We estimate that the bill would increase costs for the average enrollee by $1,542, for the year, if the bill were in effect today. In 2020, the bill would increase costs for the average enrollee by $2,409.
.. In general, the impact of the Republican bill would be particularly severe for older individuals, ages 55 to 64. Their costs would increase by $5,269 if the bill went into effect today and by $6,971 in 2020. Individuals with income below 250 percent of the federal poverty line would see their costs increase by $2,945 today and by $4,061 in 2020.
.. Currently, the ACA prohibits insurers from charging older individuals premiums that are more than three times greater than premiums for younger individuals. Under the Republican bill, insurers could charge premiums for older individuals that are as much as five times greater. Therefore, obviously, premiums for older individuals would go up, those for younger individuals would go down.
.. In the absence of the individual mandate, CBO estimates that adverse selection would increase premiums by 20 percent. We assume that the Republican bill’s replacement for the individual mandate would have at least some effect, but that it would not be as effective as the mandate. We assumed the shift to a continuous coverage model would increase premiums by 10 percent.
.. These cost increases would explode by 2020. We estimate that the Republican bill would increase costs for families by $4,274. For families with a head of household age 55 to 64, the bill would increase costs by $10,591. For families with income below 250% percent of poverty, the bill would increase costs by $9,024.
Obama is Trump’s go-to scapegoat for White House woes
The president has blamed his predecessor for leaks, protests and even for priming Obamacare to explode after he left office.
.. The former president has emerged as the perfect scapegoat for Trump. The 44th commander in chief is a revered Democratic Party figure who is both loathed by conservatives and, in keeping in line with the precedent of past presidents, unlikely to publicly speak out against his successor.
.. Trump said 2017 was supposed to “be a disaster for Obamacare,” which he and Republicans more broadly campaigned on repealing and replacing.
“That’s the year it was meant to explode because Obama won’t be here,” Trump alleged. “That was when it was supposed to be even worse.”
.. “I want every American to know that action on Obamacare is an urgent necessity,” he said in his address. “The law is collapsing around us, and if we do not act to save Americans from this wreckage, it will take our health care system all the way down with it. If we do nothing, millions more innocent Americans will be hurt — and badly hurt. That’s why we must repeal and replace Obamacare.”
Death and Tax Cuts
And after all that inveighing against the evils of Obamacare, it turns out that they’ve got nothing.
Instead, they’re talking about freedom — which these days is the real refuge of scoundrels.
.. Jason Chaffetz insisted that the public outcry is just “a paid attempt to bully and intimidate”; Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, calls all anti-Trump demonstrations a “very paid, AstroTurf-type movement.”
.. flat tax credits, unrelated to income, that could be applied to the purchase of insurance.
These credits would be obviously inadequate for the lower- and even middle-income families that gained coverage under Obamacare, so it would cause a huge surge in the number of uninsured. Meanwhile, the affluent would receive a nice windfall. Funny how that seems to happen in every plan Mr. Ryan proposes.
.. This week, perhaps realizing how flat his effort fell, he began tweeting about freedom, which he defined as “the ability to buy what you want to fit what you need.”
.. Any plan that makes essential care available to everyone has to involve some restriction of choice.
.. Suppose you want to make insurance available to people with pre-existing conditions. You can’t just forbid insurance companies to discriminate based on medical history; if you do that, healthy people won’t sign up until they get sick.
.. It means that workers don’t have to fear that quitting a job with a large company will mean loss of health coverage, and that entrepreneurs don’t have to fear striking out on their own. It means that those 20 million people who gained coverage don’t have to fear financial ruin if they get sick — or unnecessary death if they can’t afford treatment. For there is no real question that Obamacare is saving tens of thousands of lives every year.
.. mainly they hate Obamacare for two reasons: It demonstrates that the government can make people’s lives better, and it’s paid for in large part with taxes on the wealthy. Their overriding goal is to make those taxes go away. And if getting those taxes cut means that quite a few people end up dying, remember: freedom!
Republicans and Medicaid Expansion
For all of the thermonuclear reactions in the press, the just-barely-started Trump administration hasn’t really had an unfixable mistake yet. Yes, the rollout of the executive order on immigration and refugees was a mess from start to finish, but the administration has the option of a mulligan and they’re taking it. (In retrospect, don’t even bother trying to enact a controversial change without your own attorney general in place to defend it legally.)
.. Strategists at Goldman put the mood of the market this way: “We are approaching peak optimism.” They forecast the S&P 500 will hit a high in the next month or so but end the year lower than where it is now as investors push back expectations for the timing of the tax cuts.
.. Ironically, some states are buying into the Medicaid expansion just as Republicans start talking about replacing it. In Kansas, the state House just voted to expand eligibility, 81-44.
.. Some might grumble that this is taking away Obamacare-era subsidies for purchasing insurance and replacing them with Trumpcare (or whatever the replacement is called) tax credits for purchasing insurance. But Walker seems pretty convinced that this is better if it is part of an overall emphasis of getting people into the workforce:
.. When governors are given the ability to really reform Medicaid and our other assistance programs, when I say it’s the same or better, I mean we help somebody get into the workforce. Now they’ve got an employer-based plan, or they’re making enough to be able to afford the co-pays or the premiums on that. They’re better off than they were before. The government just giving them something, even in the form of a subsidy, isn’t necessarily good for them. We can find a better alterative. It doesn’t mean we’re giving you more money, but rather we’re giving you more ability to earn and live a better life.
.. we were suddenly informed that because of a security sweep by the Secret Service, we all had to leave – meaning, everyone on “Radio Row” – every host, guest, producer, and technician had to clear out, even if they were supposed to be on the air.
.. CPAC didn’t have this problem when Republicans didn’t run anything in Washington!
Obviously the Secret Service needs to able to ensure a secure environment, but this felt like a massive failure of logistics and foresight. Radio stations pay big bucks to set up a mobile studio at CPAC. It’s probably some of their busiest days of the year; CPAC brings together a small crowd of potential guests in one place. Panel discussions were effectively canceled because no one could get through the checkpoints in time. There’s a good chance one of those panels was on effective communication and the need for conservatives to get their message out… and no one could actually hear it because of the sudden, unannounced security protocols.