Million Fewer Americans Would Be Covered Under the Republican Health Care Plan

Congressional forecasters are warning that 14 million more Americans will be without health insurance next year if Republicans succeed in their plan to repeal and replace Obamacare. The office has a four-decade history of even-handedness and is now headed by an appointee recommended by Price when he was a congressman.

Republicans have been doing their best to assign blame before the CBO could release its report.

The report also projected that “14 million more people would be uninsured under the legislation than under current law“.

After pointing out the number who would lose health insurance, Rep. Michael Capuano sarcastically referenced Trump’s revelation last month that health care is “complicated”.

A misfire on the Republican healthcare legislation could hobble Donald Trump’s presidency.

The CBO said the Republican plan would reduce the deficit by $337 billion over 10 years because it would sharply cut the number of Americans receiving assistance under Medicaid. That’s another way that the GOP plan would appear to save money, only by imposing more costs on those least able to afford them. However, this is likely a effect of widespread coverage losses and far less generous federal assistance to help Americans afford their health insurance premiums and out-of-pocket medical costs in exchange for massive tax cuts for the wealthy.

“I hope they would pull the bill”. They, of all people, should speak with the authority of elected representatives whose constituents will suffer mightily under this plan. And they matter, primarily because lawmakers are already using them to decide whether or not to support the Republicans’ bill.

On the other end of the spectrum, Wisconsin has 15 insurance providers participating in the exchanges in 2017, and OH has 11. Trump’s promise of more affordable health coverage is also contradicted by the CBO report, which predicts insurance premiums will rise until 2020 and then decrease.

“How can they look their constituents in the eye when they say 24 million of you no longer have coverage and those of you who do have it, will have less coverage at more cost to you”, House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said.

Republicans are painting the CBO estimates as an incomplete analysis, saying the American Health Care Act will not saddle people with insurance they can not afford. Under the proposed bill, the amount of federal funding would be capped on a per-person basis, so funding would go up as more people qualify. The CBO estimates that only 5 percent of enrollees in the expansion program would remain eligible for the higher federal payments by 2024, since the bill would phase out those payments to states as patients cycle in and out of eligibility.

Because the bill would continue to require insurers to provide coverage to any applicant regardless of their health status or any pre-existing conditions, and would limit variation in premiums due to age, older and sicker people would be less likely to see losses in coverage than younger and healthier people.

Also in the headlines on the Sunday talk show circuit was the Trump administration’s request Friday that more than 40 holdover federal prosecutors from former President Barack Obama’s administration submit their resignations.