HUB's LIST of medical fun facts

WINNERS: Young, Wealthy, Healthy, “Blue States” (urban millennials)
LOSERS: Older, Poor, Sick, “Red States” (rural working poor)

The American Health Care Act (AHCA) was developed by Paul Ryan (R) who has been publicly promising a Republican health care act since 2009!  He apparently does not want his name attached to this one. Neither does Trump. So I choose to call it “RepubliCare”.

The Congressional Budget Office’s “quick and dirty” analysis of the American Health Care Act (actually two bills still in committee) estimates that 14 million people will lose their health insurance in 2018 if it “replaces” the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare). Of all the projections, this one is probably the most crucial, since it will be a factor in the mid-term elections.

The CBO is a non-partisan, independent body created by President Richard Nixon in his last act before resigning in 1974. The CBO aids Congress in developing their own budget proposals, in objectively costing out their proposed bills, and in analyzing budgets developed by the Executive branch. The Commonwealth Fund (a liberal think tank) has determined that all financial projections of ACA costs were inaccurate, but that the CBO was closest to the actual. This current CBO report was done in association with the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation. It is “quick and dirty” because the sudden appearance of the two bills surprised them. The CBO states it had insufficient time to project the cost effects on states and other “macroeconomic” effects, as required by the House of Representative rules for any “major legislation”.  The published projections actually represent the mid-point between low and high estimates, neither of which have been made public.

RepubliCare is projected to trim $337 Billion off the federal deficit over 10 years. According to the CBO most of the increase in the uninsured and the cost savings (federal only) would result from repealing the individual mandate, lowering the federal subsidies for low-income non-group policies, decreasing the federal subsidy to Medicaid by going to “block grants” to states, and stopping any expansion of Medicaid coverage after 2020.

CBO had three weeks to analyze the ACA. They had 5 days with RepubliCare. CBO 2010 projections of the ACA costs were lower than actual because 1) more people opted for Medicaid coverage than expected, 2) actual Medicaid costs per enrollee were higher than expected,  3) the individual mandate (currently a $695 yearly penalty for not buying health insurance) proved too weak an incentive for young people to buy insurance, 4) health insurance exchanges (the private insurers market place) attracted only about half of the projected number of people, and 5) the general economy improved slower than estimated (“did not match the Ronald Reagan Recovery curve.”)

Rather than boring you with repeats of the number of “millions losing health insurance per year” under RepubliCare, here are some “fun facts” about it you can use to punctuate chats with your friends and colleagues:

• It is 66 pages long. (That calculates out to about 8.25 pages per year for the writing pace of Paul Ryan (R).
• 6 pages are devoted to changes in Medicaid eligibility rules, including the interesting item prohibiting any Lottery winner from being eligible for Medicaid.
• replaces the individual mandate ($695 penalty tax) with tax credits worth about 1/12th of the average yearly insurance premium (for anyone, of course, who has a taxable income).
• eliminates the 2.3% tax on medical devices. (The Advanced Medical Technology Association is the only Massachusetts medical organization that has expressed support of RepubliCare so far)
• eliminates the 10% tax on tanning stores (Probably a blatant try for support from Trump and ex-senator John Boehner (R). Actually, pale Paul Ryan (R) could use a visit or two, though universities and colleges across the country are limiting student access to tanning stores because of the increased risk of melanoma).
• removes coverage for substance abuse and mental health services by 2020.
• eliminates tax surcharge on insurance executives “earning” more than $500,000 a year.
• eliminates tax on big pharma-manufacturing companies
• delays implementation of 40% tax on “Cadillac” health insurance policies for high income people until 2025.
• prohibits Medicaid reimbursement to Planned Parenthood for any of their services. (a major source of revenue for the 97% of preventative and non-abortion treatment services PP provides)
• retains prohibition against denying pre-existing conditions (but imposes a 30% surcharge for such for 1 year).
• retains coverage of children under 26 on parents’ policy.
• retains coverage for contraceptive and maternity benefits.
• retains prohibition of any surcharges on women’s policies (“gender equivalence”)
• allows elders to be charged 5 times the premium of younger people. (AARP is all over this one as age discrimination) ACA allowed a 3:1 premium ratio.
• increases maximum contributions to Health Savings Account (HSA) from $3,400 to $6,500. ( Great , if you are making enough money to save.)

Liberals, Democrats, many Republicans, many governors, hospitals, physicians, the AARP, and even conservatives don’t like the bill.

“The AHCA does what it was intended to do; it lowers federal spending and reduces the number of people with health insurance.” (Michael Chernew, MD, Harvard University)

“ It would repeal far less of ObamaCare than the bill Republicans sent to President Obama one year ago. The House Republican leadership bill does not replace ObamaCare. It merely applies a new coat of paint to a building that Republicans themselves have already condemned.” Cato Institute 

Republicans in Congress are claiming that the CBO did not cover the “whole” plan. “What was not covered was what else we are going to do in terms of ‘regulation reforms’, state Medicaid rules, and future bills.”

I believe we are being asked to buy a hastily produced “pig in a poke”, an even bigger pig in a bigger poke than Obamacare.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 15th, 2017 at 4:57 PM and is filed under current events, government, health care reform, politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.