By now you’ve heard this one — House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R — Asshole) said this —
Jason Chaffetz told CNN’s Alisyn Camerota on “New Day” that he wants low-income Americans to be able to have more access to health coverage.“But access for lower income Americans doesn’t equal coverage,” Camerota said.“Well, we’re getting rid of the individual mandate. We’re getting rid of those things that people said that they don’t want,” Chaffetz replied. “Americans have choices, and they’ve got to make a choice. So rather than getting that new iPhone that they just love and want to go spend hundreds of dollars on that, maybe they should invest in their own health care.“They’ve got to make those decisions themselves,” Chaffetz added.Camerota asked if health care will “require some sacrifice” for lower-income Americans.“We have to be able to lower the cost of health care,” he said. “We do think that with more choices, that you will get a better product at a lower price and that will be good for everybody on the entire spectrum of income.”
The problem is this — you can buy a new iPh9ne 7 plus for less than $900; a lot less, if you shop around. In 2016 the total average cost for employer-sponsored health care cost for a family of four was $25,826, a cost usually split between employer and employee. Individual insurance costs are paid entirely by individuals, unless they qualify for a subsidy in the exchanges that the new GOP bill would do away with. And individual insurance usually is more expensive than group insurance.
But let’s go with the $25,826 figure anyway. Our family of four could easily buy 29 or 30 iPhone 7s with that kind of money.
And the larger point is that politicians like Chaffetz (R-Moron) haven’t bothered to even look at the numbers. They know nothing about what health insurance really costs, and why. They have no idea why “choice†under the proposed Republican plan is a joke for anyone but upper-income Americans.
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Health insurance is expensive because health care is expensive, and the Republican bill does absolutely nothing to address health care costs. Obamacare did, a little bit, on the margins. But the bottom line is that health care is expensive in the U.S. because we have a for-profit system with no meaningful price controls, and prices are being gouged all over the place. And not just by the pharmaceutical industry.
Other countries put limits on what profits can be made on providing drugs and technology and what not; we don’t. The chart above is an old one, and shows how costs were skyrocketing in the U.S. before Obamacare went into effect. Giving people phony “choices†to buy health insurance they can’t afford doesn’t do a dadblamed thing to address the real problem.
What the Republicans are doing doesn’t erase a penny of actual cost. It just pushes more of the cost burden back on the poor so that taxes on the better-off can be cut.
The Holy Free Market (blessed be It) doesn’t care if our average family of four gets health care or not. It has no incentive to give them health care at cost or at a loss. That family can just die already.
Here’s just a bit of what the Republicans want to offer us:
Obamacare’s tax credits are based on income, with those who earn less getting more help. Under Obamacare, people who earn less than 200 percent of the poverty line (about $24,120 for an individual or $49,200 for a family of four) get the most generous help. They would get enough money so that a midlevel plan would cost no more than 6.4 percent of their income. People who earn more than 400 percent of the poverty line ($48,240 for an individual or $98,400 for a family of four) get nothing at all. There is no cap on what they have to pay for insurance.
The Republican plans would be based mostly on age and a bit on income. Everyone who earns less than $75,000 (or $150,000 for a couple filing jointly) would get the same amount of help. Those above the income threshold would have the help slowly phased out in 10 percent increments. The tax credits would be doled out this way:
- $2,000 for those under 30
- $2,500 for those between 30 and 40
- $3,000 for those between 40 and 50
- $3,500 for those between 50 and 60
- $4,000 for those over 60
On the surface, the tax credits for the oldest Americans seem the most generous. People in their 60s, for example, get twice as much help as those in their 20s.
But under the Republican plan, insurers would be allowed to charge the oldest Americans five times as much as the youngest Americans. Their financial help would not scale nearly as much as their premiums would.
“You’re both jacking up the prices and giving people less of a subsidy, which is a damaging combination,†says David Certner, legislative policy director for the AARP, which lobbies on behalf of Americans over 55.
So yeah, this sucks. Along with Sarah Kliff’s analysis see Ezra Klein.
It is terrible, but what did anyone expect? I have just listened to Sanctimonious Price and Spicey Liar blather all manner of lies on CNN about this. It is not as though any of it mattered to them personally. They are just trying to spread the Soylent Green thinner.
Don’t worry, as soon as the trumpsters figure out that those lazy minorities will really be hurt bad by this they’re all in.
Listen parents, if you drop your baby on its head, and you suspect some serious mental damage, then steer the child towards being a serial killer, and not a conservative politician.
A serial killer can only wound, torture, and kill so many people before finally being caught or killed.
A Republican poltician can have body counts that can, theoretically, make it up to 6 digits – and even up to the millions.
Every time I see Paul “Privatizin’ and Lyin'” Ryan – that man the MSM has appointed a policy “wonk” (he’s actually the very definition of a “wanker) – I am always reminded of one of my favorite movie quotes:
“The cheaper the crook, the gaudier the patter.â€
―Dashiell Hammett
The Maltese Falcon (1930)
Now this is a real corporate giveaway, not the one too many lazy, undetailed thinkers on the Left–the Heritage Foundation proposed it!–claimed the ACA was. For its flaws, the ACA accomplished more, in a progressive fashion, than this ever will, that is if your goal is to expand healthcare coverage. Jesus, the bill actually requires insurance companies to charge you 30% more if you experience a coverage gap and has a tax cut (loosely termed) in it specifically for insurance CEOs. Single payer is my preference, but I do appreciate the clarity the Republican bill will offer some on the Left.
From Ezra Klein (who is a straight shooter) “On the regulatory side, many of Obamacare’s key protections, from essential benefits to lifetime limits to protections for preexisting conditions, remain in place.”
I am confused regarding whether or not the required provisions of basic coverage survive. This goes to whether or not insurance companies could offer ‘junk’ plans for a good price that cover almost nothing. As I interpret ‘essential benefits’ they did survive, but I’ve read statements to the contrary.
CNN is reporting that some Freedom Caucus leaders are declaring that the bill is unacceptable. “Dead on Arrival” is the phrase used. As Ezra theorized, Medicaid subsidies might easily be extended past 2020 if killing those benefits is a political liability. The Freedom Caucus may dig in hard if they see a permanent ‘entitlement’ program for poor people.
It’s repeal with no replace and the fairly consistent feature seems to be reducing taxes at the top.
Jesus, the bill actually requires insurance companies to charge you 30% more if you experience a coverage gap and has a tax cut (loosely termed) in it specifically for insurance CEOs.
Yeah, and not having coverage under Obamacare you pay a penalty, but allowing the 30% premium for a coverage gap is termed “an incentive”.
It’s telling that this plan was kept under lock and key, and the Republicans want to rush it through before the CBO even scores it.
It’s clear that they know the reaction this thing would get if people knew what was in it, and so they’re trying to get it passed with as little public exposure as possible. I have no words for the contempt I feel for these people.
moonbat,
I wonder if they’re really people at all, and not some flesh-encased lizard creatures from the planet Kill’EmOrWound’Em, here to ship human meat to the Overlords back there on their home planet.
More humans sacrificed on the altar of Mammon.
Nothing to see, folks. Pass on.
gulag: The science-fiction writer Fred Saberhagen often wrote of the Berserkers; a race of self-reproducing killer robots, left over from some ancient interstellar war, still on a mission to destroy all life. Occasionally the Berserkers encounter a person willing to collaborate with them. The Berserkers call such people “goodlife”.
So I say that the Republicans are goodlife. Someone should tell them that the Berserker’s reward for goodlife is to be killed last.
Rest easy: in Saberhagen’s stories our hero always destroys the Berserkers. It turns out that they’re not that smart.
You would think by this time, with all the “think tanks”, repeal votes, pompous rhetoric, or just by plain luck the Rs would have at least one idea that an objective observer could say was a good one to improve health care. If someone has found even one approaching this level please let me know. I like to carp, but this is ridiculous. Not only that, no one has put cost numbers to any of it yet.  Just by accident can’t they even come up with one. single, stinking, good idea? Just one.
Hey, bernie! Obamacare was a Republican idea. Maybe not a good idea, but better than what we had before.
Billikin, right you are. I was referring to the current mutation of the Rs and not so much previous ones. We really do not know what form they have taken since the takeover by the inheritocracy or Putin-lovers wing and their rejection of intellectual conservatism. At present using generalities is probably an error, as all is in flux. It seems the libertarian wing and Rand Paul were not part of the in circle who drew up the presently proposed health care bill, and have come out in opposition. What a soap opera.