The pseudonym "Philo Vaihinger" has been abandoned. All posts have been and are written by me, Joseph Auclair.

Saturday, October 14, 2017

Yesterday's optimism is gone. Trump really slammed Ocare.

Trump is moving on several fronts to fulfill his evil promises as far as he can without help from the congress.

Ocare is only one of them.

Yesterday some claimed the insurance companies had another gummint pocket to pick to keep selling the good stuff at not impossible prices.

Doesn't sound it, today.

Sounds like he did what he said he would do if the congress didn't repeal and replace: just blow it up.

The government will lose some $200 billion, millions of people will pay more, and millions will lose coverage.

A win for The Duce and the idiot right.

Trump Pushes Obamacare To Detonation, Forges Path Away From GOP, Democrats

Back in March, after the first Republican legislative failure to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, during the Trump presidency, President Trump went before cameras in the Oval Office and revealed some of his thinking when it came to the politics of health care.

"I've been saying for the last year and a half that the best thing we can do politically speaking is let Obamacare explode," Trump said. 

"It is exploding right now."

Experts said the ACA wasn't "exploding," but that it needed fixes to help incentivize insurers to stay in marketplaces.

But now, six months later, Obamacare may actually be on the road to "exploding" — catalyzed by an accelerant poured over it by Trump. 

The moves he's taken risk blowing up the individual markets by making insurance too expensive for lower- and middle-class families. 

Not really any consolation in this thought.

Too many people will be hurt really badly.

Trump's actions, however, could backfire politically, threatening to shift blame for the health care act's shortcomings from Obama and Democrats to Trump and Republicans.

That's something Republicans have feared and now believe will happen.

"If people lose their cost-sharing reduction payments — their subsidies — it's going to be pretty hard to blame a former president — Barack Obama — for that," moderate Republican Rep. Charlie Dent of Pennsylvania told NPR's All Things Considered on Friday. 

"We Republicans control the House and the Senate and the White House. If there are problems, we will likely own them. It's pretty hard to say that the former president is somehow going to be able to accept all the blame. He's out of the game right now."

The heart of the matter:

At issue is the president's decision to end subsidies that help offset the cost of insurance for anyone making up to three times the federal poverty level — that's a yearly household income of $97,000 for a family of four.

Trump's action could mean premium increases of 20 percent by 2018 for people buying insurance through exchanges, the Congressional Budget Office estimates, and more than that in subsequent years. 

And the CBO estimates it will wind up costing — not saving — the government almost $200 billion over the next 10 years.

And this, too:

Trump's move came a day after he took yet another step to undermine Obamacare by signing an executive order allowing groups of small businesses and associations to band together to buy health insurance.

That could draw younger, healthier people away from the exchanges. 

It might give younger people a discount for cut-rate coverage, but it would likely drive up the price of premiums for Americans who need care.

That's not all the Trump administration has done that could pull the rug out from under the ACA — it has also shortened the sign-up period for health care; closed the federal exchange on Sundays; and cut the budget for marketing efforts, including ending advertising to urge sign ups.

No comments:

Post a Comment