New article today on MSN about the Republican plan:
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/what-we-know-about-the-gops-healthcare-bill/ar-AAnNlmaThe article is mostly old news, as it appears to be based on the draft that leaked a week or two ago. But I thought this quote was very instructive regarding the Freedom Caucus attitude about health care:
Rep. Michael Burgess (R-Texas), the chairman of the Energy and Commerce health subcommittee, said last month. "If the [coverage] numbers drop, I would say that's a good thing, because we've restored personal liberty in this country."
Yes, let's restore the liberty to go without health insurance because you can't afford it.
There's some re-hashing of things we already knew about, but the basic mechanism by which 20 million people lose coverage bears repeating:
ObamaCare bases its tax credits on income, meaning that low-income people get extra help. The Republican plan, in contrast, would provide a tax credit based on age, with older people receiving more money.
A study from the Kaiser Family Foundation last week found that the average tax credit to help people buy insurance would be at least 36 percent lower in 2020 under a leaked House GOP bill or a previous plan from then-Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.) than under the Affordable Care Act.
Avik Roy, a leading Republican health policy expert, wrote in Forbes that not adjusting financial assistance for income is a "key flaw" in the GOP plan.
"It means that millions of highly vulnerable people - those near the poverty line and those with poor health status - will not receive enough in tax credits to afford the coverage they need," he wrote.
Republicans argue that giving more assistance to people with lower incomes is a disincentive to work and earn a higher income.
"You don't get the implicit tax on making more income" under the GOP plan, said Doug Holtz-Eakin, president of the American Action Forum.
So it's very simple. People who are barely scraping by in blown-out rust belt towns by working at a convenience store out by the highway just need to find a way to make more money, and the health care conundrum will be solved!
And then the coup de grace:
The GOP bill would keep the ObamaCare protection that bans insurers from rejecting people with pre-existing conditions - but with a twist.
Insurers would be allowed to charge people 30 percent higher premiums for one year if they have had a gap in their healthcare coverage.
So once we've kicked low income people off of their health insurance, we're going to make it even harder for them to get back on. Mwu-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha.