Let's talk highlights on the new healthcare 'proposal.'
-Guaranteed higher premiums due to a lack of program
mandate. This mandate, or requirement of
all uninsured Americans to either have coverage, or pay a penalty, is what
keeps the costs down for every American when they need access to coverage -
REGARDLESS of whether your coverage comes from an employer, or privately. All insurance companies pull their funding
from a joint 'pool' of these payments.
Premiums are what you pay monthly to be a part of the program, the
deductibles are combined with this, into the pool, to fund your healthcare.
Without this mandate, the healthiest will no longer have
to put into the program, and in their health, they keep insurance companies
afloat by contributing without drawing from the pool. Meanwhile, those of average or less health
create the largest draw. To offset this
large pull from the pool with a smaller number of insured Americans, premiums
will rise, as will deductibles.
-This 'proposal' builds in tax revocations and sheltering
programs allowing individuals that can afford to stow $10,000 or MORE at a time
into a special medical savings program.
Subsequently, the money in this fund will be non-taxable. Imagine making $30,000-$40,000 a year, and
being able to withhold taxes on it, so long as it goes into a specific
account. Even only used for healthcare,
the average American pays copays and deductibles out-of-pocket, post-tax,
because the requirements of this program are so costly and limiting, that
they're restricted to only the upper echelon of income-earners.
Along with this and removing the taxation on luxury
non-medical procedures, on medical equipment, and quality-of-life diminishing
products (such as squashing or entirely removing taxes on sodas, cigarettes,
and tanning bed use), the only person that stands to lose is the American
public. With higher premiums, but
cheaper access to publicly acknowledged health risks, this 'proposal' is
further limiting access to reasonable healthcare services.
-Further, with less going into taxes for these products
and offerings, its estimated that a combination of households pulling down
$200,000 or more stand to profit by as much as $346 BILLION over the next 10
years through health and luxury tax reductions.
That's to say, those that can invest into the medical system, its new
tax-shelters, and the subsidies I'll discuss further, the top 3% of Americans
will scrape away another 3-5% from their fiscal responsibility to the Federal
government.
-Women's Reproductive care will become optional. This is not a joke or hyperbole. It will no longer be part of the minimum
required offering for a woman to see her OB-GYN. Maternity care will no longer be
guaranteed. Wellness care for things
like ovarian cysts, endometriosis, fibroids, and pre- and post-menopausal
treatments will ALL. BE. OPTIONAL.
Keeping in mind, as this coverage becomes optional, the pool to draw
from funding for this will become smaller. This, in turn, makes the individual
cost for the plan, deductibles, and any copays, increase.
-Meanwhile, no changes to the coverage of men's
reproductive health. Want your nards cut
so you never have kids again, but can boink to your hearts content? - Covered.
Want your uterus removed because cancer? - that coverage
is now optional by provider.
-Back to point.
Planned Parenthood - political bogeyman of the Republicans, who provide
medical free or reduced-cost assistance to BOTH sexes, 98% of which has nothing
to do with abortions - will be utterly defunded. Period.
The last bastion of reasonable, recognizable, and accessible healthcare
for my wife and nieces, sister and sister-in-laws: GONE. There are no numbers here: they will be
defunded, deflated, and inelegantly scraped off the bottom of a politicians
shoe like canine feces, simply because this is an organization that morally
offended them, despite the practical reality of its necessity.
In addition, private health insurance companies will be
prevented from covering abortion costs.
Regardless of your position, this INCLUDES medically-necessary
procedures, due to some fast-and-loose wording.
-The ACA's provision for essential health services and
coverage will be provisioned out within the next three years (by
12/31/2019). I - like so many Americans
- appreciate that since Mental Health was determined an essential benefit,
talking about mental issues is no longer performed in hushed tones behind
closed doors.
Too damn bad, as it's on the top of the list to be phased
out. Additionally, pre-existing
conditions that qualify for denial of coverage will be shuffled back in. Chronic pain?
Autoimmune disorder? Cancer? Parkinsons?
Alzheimers? Chrones? Brain damage? - all grounds for rejection of
coverage again.
-Subsidies will now be age-based, not income based.
Look, I pay for my own healthcare, which means I have to
use the marketplace. While I don't qualify for subsidies, I know that the use
of subsidies keeps costs in the pool lower.
Shifting this access to a smaller portion of the public - a portion
that, in most cases, already qualifies for the subsidy - increases the cost of
entry AND use for EVERYONE. Lower-income
households (reporting $60,000 or less in taxable income) will have fewer opportunities to ensure their
children are healthy and insured.
Period.
Meanwhile, people like #45 and his cronies will be
getting a 10-50% subsidy (maybe more). From the government. For their
Healthcare. While they are no longer
working FOR the government. Keeping in
mind, they would currently already qualify for Medicaid.
-Speaking of, Medicaid is dead by 12/31/2019.
Period. Know any of your parents using
Medicaid? Know how much they've used it?
Know how much they've needed it?
Well, it'll be gone. That's it. Nothing pretty or flowery
to it: it's just done and gone.
And that's it.
This isn't a repeal-and-replace: this is outright annihilation. This is a return to the the inadequate
insurance practices of the 70s and 80s.
This is not how you make a healthy, progressive,
profitable nation of productive blue and white collar employees.
This is how you legitimize a cull, clouded in the equally
subversive name of profiteering.
Ref:
http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-obamacare-repeal-20170306-story.html
