As I understand it, insurance companies would be allowed to deny coverage based on pre-existing conditions except for policies from the new state-based high-risk pools. The premiums in the high-risk pools would of course be astronomical, but would be subsidized by the state with the Feds chipping in a fixed amount as a block grant. One contentious issue is if insurance companies can kick people into the high-risk pools only if they haven’t maintained continuous coverage, or if it could happen for other reasons (changing jobs, for example).
It is likely that at least in some states the high-risk pools will death-spiral more or less immediately, returning us to the pre-Obamacare situation where medical care can become unavailable to people with serious medical conditions if their employment changes, unless they shed all their assets and get on Medicaid.
The Fed funding for the high risk pools isn’t anywhere close to enough money to support them. There are an estimated 80 million folks in the US with pre-existing conditions. With the types of insurance premium hikes they are projecting for those folks if the regulations prohibiting them are removed, you’re talking about a total cost to cover those people between 1 and 2 TRILLION DOLLARS A YEAR.
I think that they’re talking about the Feds allocating, what, $15 billion for it? Something like that?
They’re just playing a shell game… which becomes obvious if you grasp math at all.
I mean, they’re saying, “Hey, by allowing companies to charge higher rates based on your health, you will lower premiums for everyone else!”
Well, sure. But it’s not a net improvement. You’re just shifting the cost onto the sick and elderly.
Avoiding exactly this is the specific reason why the ACA prohibited it. It’s why people like that aspect of the ACA, because we agree that we don’t want to punish the sick and elderly for being sick and old.
Doing this doesn’t save any money overall… If you’re going to subsidize the sick and elderly’s cost, it’s going to cost the same as subsidizing everyone’s cost… because while it’ll be more focused on fewer people, the individual costs will be higher, because the insurance companies are gonna be making the same amount of money.
What they are banking on, is that people aren’t going to bother thinking about this… They hope that people will miss the fact that the subsidies for the high risk pools aren’t going to be anywhere CLOSE to enough to cover it. That’s where any potential cost savings occurs… by the fact that they are simply leaving the sick and elderly out in the cold.
The disconnect between Trump’s statements about pre-existing condition coverage (“It’s just as good as Obamacare”) and the actual bill (“The poor and sick can go fuck themselves”) is amazing, but I don’t think Trump is lying. He just doesn’t know what’s in the bill. He assumes that, since he mandated it, it’s as he demanded.
The good news here is that so many GOP congressmen are rejecting the bill on this grounds. They appear to be genuinely concerned with the impact of the bill on their constituents. They’ve also concluded that “lie to them, then blame Pelosi and Obama later” won’t work here. I think they’re right. People (and the media) are paying attention to this.
None of this is terribly surprising. Trump presented himself as the consummate alpha-male ball buster, someone who speaks and embodies the ethos of domination his most ardent supporters instinctively crave and believe in. In practice, he’s repeatedly adopted what might be termed the preemptive fail, not only talking tough but failing to achieve his aims but actually jumping ahead of the process and unilaterally backing down or saying a metaphorical ‘nevermind’ before the supposed confrontation even arrives. As the Mexicans seem to have concluded Trump is less a threat than a bullshit artist who caves easily and is best either ignored or treated with a stern, disciplined and unafraid response.
I think it’s fair to say that if you get Kimmel of all people to go out on a limb to oppose you then you’ve lost the nation (not that the nation was really ever behind ACA repeal.)
Well done, Mr. Kimmel, the hair-tousling incident is forgiven.
Every so often something reminds me that Jimmies Kimmel and Fallon are different people and it makes me really anxious to know that they’re both just, like, out there, man. Doin’ stuff. All day long.
Paul Ryan is on TV defending the omnibus spending bill… I kind of feel like screws should just chill out about this until after it’s passed, and stop gloating about how it’s such a huge victory before it’s passed.
He also said they have the votes to pass the AHCA, but the guy on CNN points out, “they don’t. They just don’t. If they did, they’d have a vote scheduled. We’d have a countdown clock on the screen!”
I honestly don’t get why they don’t give up on it, cause they keep making it worse.
The funny thing is, that basically 99% of Americans agree with Jimmy on this. But, when it comes to legislature, people are just expecting politicians to do the right thing. And the politicians are like “people voted for me to repeal this, so I have to”. Those people voted for you to “repeal” because you said you would have a better alternative. But it turns out, you thought you could figure that out after you got elected…
They are like kids that didn’t do their homework and are frantically trying to scrabble something on a sheet of paper before the teacher calls their name.
