CBO: Trump/GOP Healthcare Plan Will Increase Uninsured by 24 Million

If they had not realized that they were conned before, perhaps now that the Congressional Budget Office ("CBO") has released its analysis of the impact of the Trump/GOP healthcare replacement for Obamacare, millions of working class voters who (stupidly, in my view) supported Der Trumpenführer and Republicans in 2016 should be having that reality hit them full force.  Yes, Republicans are working shamelessly to try to undermine the credibility of the CBO figures, but even if off by 50%, that would still 12 Americans set to lose health insurance. The trade off is over $337 billion in reductions to the federal deficit - not that those losing coverage will give a damn about the deficit.  The truth is that anyone rational knew that the GOP replacement of Obamacare would ravage Trump's base which preferred to cling to lies and racism than open its eyes.  Both Politico and the Washington Post have coverage of the CBO analysis and the backlash that deservedly may face the GOP if this atrocity of a plan goes forward.  First, these excerpts from Politico:

The CBO projection finding the House Obamacare repeal bill would mean 24 million more uninsured may be politically toxic, but its conclusion the bill would cut the deficit gives Republican leaders a green light to press on with a plan they say will save the U.S. health care system by cutting taxes, regulations and entitlement spending.

The Republicans have cast themselves as hard-headed saviors of a broken system in which Americans are forced to buy coverage they don’t want and can’t afford. But the numbers CBO issued Monday won’t make for an easier sell. Moderate and conservative critics alike are sure to be emboldened by forecasts that directly undercut President Donald Trump’s repeated promise that everyone would be better off under the Republican plan.

Democrats trying to save their health care law will be sure to keep hammering away at that 24 million figure as proof Republicans are shredding an essential safety net.

Here are five important takeaways from Monday’s CBO report:

Trump voters would take a hit. Every piece of health care legislation has winners and losers. In this case, the CBO says the clear losers would be older, low-income Americans between 50 and 64, just below the Medicare eligibility age.  In other words, a lot of Trump voters.

The CBO report lays out a stark example of how older and poorer Americans would be hurt by the GOP bill. If Obamacare were still in place in its current form a decade from now, a 64-year-old earning $26,500, or just less than twice the federal poverty level, would pay $1,700 for premiums in a year after accounting for federal assistance. Under the GOP plan, a 64-year-old at the same income level would pay $14,600 in premiums for coverage that would also have higher out-of-pocket costs.

Medicaid bears the brunt of the cuts. The Republican plan would be paid for with an eye-popping $880 billion cut to the health entitlement for the poor, elderly and disabled over a decade. That’s sure to send a jolt to governors who rely on federal Medicaid funds to keep their programs going and their budgets balanced.

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), among the most conservative Democrats, who is up for re-election in 2018, said on Monday the bill is “morally wrong.”  "To do what they're doing right now is absolutely unconscionable," Manchin said. “It's just awful … There's got to be a moral compass inside somebody.”

Employer coverage could decline  While the repeal bill primarily deals with the individual insurance market for people who don’t get coverage at work and Medicaid, the CBO projects that employer coverage would drop by 7 million over a decade.

Death spiral? What death spiral? The report provides a bit of good news for Obamacare supporters and detractors. Despite some instability in Obamacare's marketplaces, the CBO doesn't believe the health care law is facing a dreaded death spiral, in which premiums rise so high that only the sickest patients are motivated to purchase insurance.

Republican credibility took a hit On Sunday, HHS Secretary Tom Price said on NBC's "Meet the Press" that he thinks coverage will expand and financial burdens will decrease under the GOP plan. That’s not looking so good in light of the CBO assessment. . . . In an added twist, it was Price, as a Georgia congressman and chairman of the House Budget Committee, who in 2015 lauded the selection of the CBO director whose analysis he tore into.

The Washington Post assessment is equally brutal.  The most ridiculous statement was that of Paul Ryan who continues to lie through his teeth.  Millions losing coverage, yet Ryan :said the legislation “is about giving people more choices and better access to a plan they want and can afford. When people have more choices, costs go down. That’s what this report shows.” The man is despicable and a liar!  Here are article highlights:

House Republicans’ proposal to rewrite federal health-care law would more than reverse the gains the Affordable Care Act has made in the number of Americans with health insurance, while curbing the federal deficit, according to a widely anticipated forecast by congressional analysts.

The analysis, released late Monday afternoon by the Congressional Budget Office, predicts that 24 million fewer people would have coverage a decade from now than if the Affordable Care Act remains intact, nearly doubling the share of Americans who are uninsured from 10 percent to 19 percent. The office projects the number of uninsured people would jump 14 million after the first year.

The 37-page report provides the most tangible evidence to date of the human and fiscal impact of the House GOP’s American Health Care Act. It also undermines President Trump’s pledge that no Americans would lose coverage under a Republican remake of the Affordable Care Act, which was enacted by a Democratic Congress in 2010.

Declaring that the plans would usher in “the most fundamental entitlement reform in a generation,” Ryan said the legislation “is about giving people more choices and better access to a plan they want and can afford. When people have more choices, costs go down. That’s what this report shows.”

Declaring that the plans would usher in “the most fundamental entitlement reform in a generation,” Ryan said the legislation “is about giving people more choices and better access to a plan they want and can afford. When people have more choices, costs go down. That’s what this report shows.”

Despite that sales pitch, early signs emerged Monday night that the Congressional Budget Office report was not helping to solidify GOP support. Rep. Rob Wittman (R-Va.) announced he would oppose the bill.

Wittman’s stance could represent a new front of dissent among House Republicans. A six-term member who leads a House Armed Services subcommittee and represents a district that favored Trump by 12 percentage points, Wittman is neither a hard-right firebrand nor a wary moderate from a Medicaid expansion state. Rather, he is the sort of mainstream conservative that Ryan is counting on to toe the party line and pass the bill.

Democrats used the report’s findings to continue excoriating the House GOP plan. “The CBO score shows just how empty the president’s promises, that everyone will be covered and costs will go down, have been,” said Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.). “This should be a looming stop sign for the Republicans’ repeal effort.”

Snatching Health Care Away From Millions

The perverse part of me takes some measure of delight in watching the media coverage of the many cretins - many of whom are highly religious (see the previous post) - who voted for Donald Trump and Republicans agonizing over the consequences of a repeal of the Affordable Health Care Act.   Many of these individuals, especially GOP loving red states, could literally find themselves losing all health care coverage and being at the mercy of hospital emergency rooms as their sole source of medical treatment - treatment that will not include preventive care or maintenance care.  Adding to the mix is the danger that smaller rural hospitals will be forced into bankruptcy and closing.  And who is to blame for this dire situation?  Trump and GOP voters, of course.  They allowed appeals to racism, xenophobia and bigotry to dupe them into committing what may prove to be a form of suicide.  Do I have sympathy for these folks?  None whatsoever, although I fear for the consequences to children who may lose health care access thanks to the stupidity of their elders.  As a column in the New York Times points out, regardless of the spin efforts of the GOP and Trump, a/k/a Der Fuhrer, these people must be made to realize that they themselves and the GOP/Trump will be responsible if their fears are realized.  Here are column highlights:

If James Comey, the F.B.I. director, hadn’t tipped the scales in the campaign’s final days with that grotesquely misleading letter, right now . . . . the huge gains achieved so far — tens of millions of newly insured Americans and dramatic reductions in the number of people skipping treatment or facing financial hardship because of cost — look as if they’re here to stay.

Or they would be here to stay if the man who squeaked into power thanks to Mr. Comey and Vladimir Putin wasn’t determined to betray his supporters, and snatch away the health care they need.

To appreciate the good news about Obamacare you need to understand where the earlier bad news came from. Premiums on the exchanges, the insurance marketplaces created by the Affordable Care Act, did indeed rise sharply this year, because insurers were losing money. But this wasn’t because of a surge in overall medical costs, which have risen much more slowly since the act was passed than they did before. It reflected, instead, the mix of people signing up — fewer healthy, low-cost people than expected, more people with chronic health issues.

The question was whether this was a one-time adjustment or the start of a “death spiral,” . . . And the answer is that it looks like a one-shot affair. Despite higher premiums, enrollments in the exchanges are running ahead of their levels a year ago; no death spiral here.

In other words, Obamacare hit a bump in the road, but appears to be back on track.  But will it be killed anyway?

In a way, Democrats should hope that Republicans follow through on their promises to repeal health reform. After all, they don’t have a replacement, and never will. . . . because they can’t; the logic of broad coverage, especially for those with pre-existing conditions, requires either an Obamacare-like system or single-payer, which Republicans like even less. That won’t change.

As a result, repeal would have devastating effects, with people who voted Trump among the biggest losers. Independent estimates suggest that Republican plans would cause 30 million Americans to lose coverage, with about half the losers coming from the Trump-supporting white working class. At least some of those Trump supporters would probably conclude that they were the victims of a political scam — which they were.

Why do the Republicans hate health reform? Some of the answer is that Obamacare was paid for in part with taxes on the wealthy, who will reap a huge windfall if it’s repealed, even as many middle-income families face tax hikes.

More broadly, Obamacare must die precisely because it’s working, showing that government action really can improve people’s lives — a truth they don’t want anyone to know.

How will Republicans try to contain the political fallout if they go ahead with repeal, and tens of millions lose access to health care? No doubt they’ll try to distract the public — and the all-too-compliant news media — with shiny objects of various kinds.

When the number of uninsured Americans skyrockets on their watch, they’ll claim that it’s not their fault — like everything, it’s the fault of liberal elites.

If, as seems all too likely, a health care debacle is imminent, blame must be placed where it belongs: on Donald Trump and the people who put him over the top.

As for James Comey, I hope that history comes to view him as one of the great villains of 2016 and the ruin of America.