The Republicans have been working on an attempt to introduce new legislation on the health care act that will satisfy both the Republicans in the House and the Democrats in the House.
It’s not going to happen. The Democrats will try to protect the people, even though the people voted for the Republicans. Yes, people are basically stupid.
The problem is made more complicated by the fact that the so-called “Freedom Caucus” which is basically Tea Party members supported by Right Wing billionaires seem to be against anything that costs any money at all. And there is no free lunch in health care. We can’t have more tax cuts for billionaires and subsidized health care, which we desperately need as a society. We are the only advanced country where there is no universal health care, paid for in general taxes.
The fact is that the Freedom Caucus, ultra Right Wingers (Tea Party) doesn’t really want health care subsidies at all. It was a Tea Party Senator, Marco Rubio, who gutted the bill in 2015 by slipping in an amendment to an appropriations bill that virtually removed subsidies resulting in the problems with higher premium prices and lack of health insurance offers in some areas.
In this instance as the video shows, they want to pawn off the responsibility for handling subsidized care for those with a previous condition, or as the Republicans call them, “high risk” citizens on the states. If you’ve ever been sick, you are ‘high risk” and your premiums, under the Republican plans, will go shooting up…also if you are lucky enough to get older.
Of course, not everyone not everyone can afford private health care insurance these days. After all, not everyone has a House Member’s $174,000 salary plus expenses for office space, mail and personnel that runs another approximately $1.270,000 per year.So one of the sticking points is that the Republicans don’t want to be on their own health care program. They want to be on one that they have written specially for them.
Here are just some of the problems with the House bill:
- It does nothing at all to control the prices of health care insurance premiums. There are no controls because this is a bill written for the health care industry. It relies on trusting the health care industry once again to “do the right thing” for the American people. When will we learn our lesson? Large corporations these days have allegiance to only one thing: profits.
- It does not address guarantees or subsidies for those with previous conditions. It leaves the conditions to the states. Well, if you live in about half the states, they were not concerned whether the poorest citizens lived or died. They left them without any insurance at all, and very little health care outside of emergency rooms, at some of which they could be rejected, leaving them to die. We know what happened before. Even a pregnancy could be considered a prior condition.
- It eliminates all funding for Planned Parenthood. Abortion is not the issue. The issue is whether a fetus has become the tiniest aspect of a human child. When does it have sentient impulses and when does it feel pain. Doctors say between 24 and 28 weeks. The Churches who want abortion completely removed, easily won the day with the Republicans who are indebted to the backward-looking of science, religion, and finance for their support.
- It will remove all cost-sharing subsidies completely by 2020. This means that the insurance companies (health insurance is mandated as the system to run health care) will be able to charge as much as they want in premiums again, including 5 times as much for older citizens as they charge younger ones. If you are 60, you will pay as much as $2500 for the same policy that a younger person pays $500. Without subsidies, many people will be priced out of the market.
- If you have lost your coverage and don’t renew it (by very expensive COBRA apparently) within 63 days, the insurance companies can charge you (and will) 30% more. This is the bill’s…again…insurance-industry-focused attempt to get around the fact that everyone now expects to have continuous coverage that they cannot lose. You can’t lose coverage, but the insurance companies want the money. That means that you pay them more for not paying them continuously.
- Medicaid will be sent to the states in block grants. If you think that some states, beholden to oil interests or financial interests have tried to screw you before, you ain’t seen nuthin yet. They will have the right, for example, to create new insurance plans with insurance companies, to make them affordable but will have no usable coverage. They have already reduced the levels of eligibility and added the option to create work requirement before offering coverage. The whole thing stinks from the top. What they are trying to do is rid their huge corporations and rich owners of the costs of caring for the poor that their own greed has created by sending jobs abroad where they could have been done here. The goal is to phase out Medicaid completely by 2020.
This is the plan. Cut costs. Reduce the standards for health insurance policies. Turn financial assistance to individuals basically from an upfront discount coupon to a mail-in coupon. Citizens will pay their higher premiums…that’s better for insurance companies…but get their subsidy in a tax-credit at the end of the year. Premiums for individual health care buyers, still sold in exchanges, can go as high as the insurance company wants. The poor, the laid off, the unemployed and the elderly are dealt with harshly–30% to 500%!
Watch out Medicare. They’re coming for you next.