4. Expand access to HSAs by making them available to everyone regardless of plan type, giving them higher contribution limits, and allowing more more costs (like OTC medications) to be deductible.
This is a plan I could maybe get behind! We have an HSA, and we love it. It's a great tax shelter for rich folks like me, though I admit it is totally worthless to the majority of Americans who already pay little or no taxes and who don't have any surplus income to sock away in a tax shelter. This bullet point is effectively just another tax cut for the rich. Hey I'm rich, sign me up! The GOP thinks that all you poor folks can suck it, apparently.
5. Provide "refundable advanced tax credits" for people without employer insurance, regardless of income.
This is just like the ACA plan except they're calling them "credits" instead of "subsidies" but the idea is the same. Uncle Sam will foot the bill for some portion of your insurance coverage (though they would shutter the exchanges that currently allow you to shop for insurance, so get used to calling around for rate quotes). The key difference here is that under the GOP plan, Uncle Sam will provide that subsidy to everyone, instead of just for poor people. This bullet point is effectively just another tax cut for the rich. Hey I'm rich, sign me up! The GOP thinks that all you poor folks can suck it, apparently.
7. Loosen the cost controls on age-related premium pricing, so that old people will pay more for insurance.
The ACA caps the ratio of max to min premiums at 3:1, so that old folks can never pay more than 300% as much as young healthy folks pay. The GOP plan wants to change this ratio to 5:1, effectively transferring the cost of coverage away from the young and onto the old. The GOP thinks all of you poor old folks can suck it, apparently.
8. Change Medicaid to block-grant funding. This fundamentally alter the nature of this program from an entitlement, available as a social safety net to anyone who meets the criteria, to a blank check for each state to spend as they see fit. Maybe they'll expand coverage to pregnant women and children (WIC), or maybe they'll cancel medicaid entirely and use the money on tax breaks for rich people. Each state would get to decide. Red states have been pushing hard to reduce medicaid eligibility, because they don't like helping poor people.
Medicaid is currently the country's largest single insurer, providing low-cost insurance to tens of millions of low-income families and people with disabilities. It's also one of the most expensive things our government does.
Most Democrats strongly oppose ending this 54 year old program, in part because the GOP plan to dismantle medicaid (which benefits the poor and disabled) is just the first step in their plan to also dismantle medicare and social security (programs that benefit senior citizens). The GOP hates all of the entitlement programs, and medicaid is the easiest one to attack because poor people and the disabled don't vote with quite the same power that senior citizens do.
If they successfully kill medicaid, everyone's retirement plans are about to get a lot more complicated.
These were some of the points that resonated with me the most, although I found it most enlightening when I first read it some time ago. I had to laugh when Trump was asked about giving the rich a tax break and he totally blustered .. .Does he really think that people don't know or understand what he is doing?
Oh man, interesting times we live in.
So Trump couldn't make it happen - over promised - under delivered.
He'll find a way to blame Obama or Ryan or someone ...
As a country, this is bad news for everyone. I do wish reps and dems would hash out a palatable bill together. Lord knows ACA could be improved, but the crux is the stranglehold the insurance companies seem to have on America Inc. and uber conservatives.
You know one would think that a master negotiator would blossom in an environment of opposite ideals that must be congealed into a plan to benefit everyone needing health care in America. Instead, he fumes and blusters and showed me at least, for the first time, how little he really cares about this bill. He should have started with taxes and infrastructure and built some momentum first.
No system is ever perfect, but growing up in Europe it all seemed to work just fine, why the US is fighting to keep medications at 10 to 100 times the price what they are in other countries or insist on inflated premiums I will never understand. This health care plan is supposed to be for the good of all the people - not to fatten the pockets of the pharmaceutical industry!
Sure, the rich have always had private insurance and better treatment - regardless of the country. My girlfriend in Germany mentioned that when she went to a heart/stroke rehab facility in the mountains that they had a separate dining room just for the rich Saudis who came there for treatment.
Yet, she said their food was excellent, on par with any gourmet restaurant. She loved the spa and the massage and one on one sessions, not to mention the music and art ...
Quote by Sol: If they successfully kill medicaid, everyone's retirement plans are about to get a lot more complicated.Agreed, it will be interesting to see how the next round turns out.
Topic: What comes after the ACA? (Read 2054567 times)
