It Is Imperitive to Defeat GOP Healthcare Replacement

The Republican-controlled House of Representatives is both hypocritical and irresponsible in the manner in which it has rushed the American Health Care Act through the legislative process. It is hypocritical in the sense that the Obama administration and Democratic lawmakers were accused of "jamming" the Affordable Care Act through the legislative process. It is irresponsible in the failure to allow public input into the process. There were months of hearings and plenty of opportunity for public input before the ACA was enacted into law.

First, let's take a look at the positive accomplishments of the ACA:
#Reduced the uninsured by 20 million.

#Increased access to primary care, specialty care, surgery, medicines and treatment for chronic conditions.

#Young people can stay on their parents' insurance policies until age 26.

#Patients are less likely to skip needed care because of costs.

#Removed the cap on coverage.

#Provides pediatric dental and vision care, mental-health care, and preventive care.

What critics say about the ACA  and the responses:
#The ACA is collapsing --- Response - The Congressional Budget Office says the market will be stable for the next ten years.

#ACA recipients don't have access to care --- Response - Children and adults enrolled in Medicaid are as likely to have a usual source of medical care as are those with private care according to a November 2016 brief by the Medicaid and CHIP and Access Commission.

#Medicaid recipients don't have access to doctors ---- Response - Based on the same source as immediately above, Medicaid recipients are about as likely to have seen a doctor in the past year as have those with private insurance.

#The ACA has led to greatly increased premium costs --- Response - The Kaiser Family Foundation has found that cumulative premium increases were 63% for 2001-2006, 31% for 2006-2011, and 20% for 2011-2016.

#CBO projections are unreliable --- Response - The Commonwealth Fund rates the CBO "excellent" in forecasting outcomes for the ACA.

What outcomes does the CBO project for the AHCA?
#14 million will lose health insurance coverage through 2018 and 24 million will lose coverage through 2026.

#Insurance premiums will rise initially by 25 to 30% but will decrease by about 10% beginning in 2026. The average drop in insurance premiums will be due largely to older recipients dropping coverage because they can't afford to pay their premiums.

#Those aged about 55 or older will see a major increase in their insurance premiums because the ratio between their premiums and those for young people will increase from 3 to 1 to 5 to 1.

#The percentage of those aged 19 to 29 without insurance will double.

#15% of people in poor areas would lose access to health care.

#Medicaid outlays will be reduced by $880 billion through 2026.

#The mandate for coverage of mental-health and substance abuse would be eliminated.

#People would pay a 30% surcharge in their premiums if they experience a gap in coverage of two months of longer. This penalty would discourage people who have dropped out of the health insurance market from reentry unless they are sick.

#The cap on pay for insurance company executives would be raised from $500,000 to $1 million.

Finally, for those who lose their preexisting conditions exemption temporarily due to change of job or who suffer a financial setback, both and Ryan and Tom Price advocate state-run "high-risk pools." But in the thirty-five states that offered high-risk pools to the uninsurable before the ACA, inadequate funding delivered terrible coverage, with extremely high premiums and deductibles, and annual limits as low as $75,000.