The American Health Care Act….what does it mean for seniors?

The poll found the same number – 48 percent – expect the House GOP plan that seeks to replace the Affordable Care Act would increase health costs for anyone who buys their own insurance compared to 23 percent who say it will lower costs.

The ACA has helped hospitals financially by reducing uncompensated care costs.

The State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development faced a budget cut of about 31 percent, according to several officials.

Under the new health care proposal put forth by Paul Ryan, the Republican speaker of the House of Representatives, an investment income tax of 3.8 percent and 0.9 percent tax on wages will be repealed. Nor is it the casual cruelty of cutting Medicaid services to 14 million Americans after 2020. Under the House bill, insurers would be allowed to charge individuals who are between 50 and 64 – thus too young for Medicare – five times what they can charge other consumers.

Hernández said he “would have been happy to work on a bipartisan effort to address the rising cost of insurance and limiting out-of-pocket expenses, but that isn’t what this plan is about”.

The legislation would make changes beyond the ACA, including major changes in the Medicaid program, which provides health coverage for 1 in 5 Americans.

Many noted that the new plan resembled a “lite” version of the ACA, its sum total a little more than a ragbag tatterdemalion of shrunken Obamacare patches that will accomplish far less than Obamacare has, yet still result in increased premiums, higher deductibles and co-pays, the outcome of which would be far fewer enrollments. One provision would cap how much the federal government reimburses states, which is different from the current system. Obamacare was broken for people in this group.

“What we have learned in this process is that the Republicans aren’t really interested in trying to address problems in the health insurance market”, Hernández said. These populations make up 96 percent of people on Medicaid in Texas.

“They could lock Texas into a lot of historical decisions that were strictly driven by a desire to write the smallest budget possible”, she says.

Some on the right agree Texas is getting a raw deal. After the CBO released its analysis Monday, House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi called on Republicans to pull their bill from consideration, saying it’s “the only decent thing to do”.

For the first time in American history, average annual medical costs are ,000 per person. Providers will be impacted by the transition of premium subsidies to an age-based system, which in addition to a 5:1 age-rating band, may make it hard for older, lower-income enrollees to afford coverage. The horse-trading appeared to accelerate on Wednesday, as Republicans continued to litigate the bill’s details in back rooms and in the press, but it remains unclear whether it is possible for any final product to pass both the more conservative House and the comparatively moderate Senate. Those savings would be achieved by reducing Medicaid spending. The federal and state cost of Medicaid was a total $532 billion in fiscal year 2015. Price advocates for a system that allows states to develop programs that suit the needs of the individuals who live there instead of a federal program that offers the same care for all the populations it serves.

This story is part of a reporting partnership with NPR, KUT and Kaiser Health News.