How many years have the Republicans had to gather up a "plan" to show the country how much better there ideas are to help ALL Americans have access to healthcare? Decades, and the only successful implementation of any GOP plan would be one that we know of: Romneycare in Massachusetts. Which, by the way, has an individual mandate.
Now, Paul Ryan and his greedy, death panel-klan of Republicans have come up with a terribly destructive health care plan that should be called Wealth Care, h/t Jon and Dan.
The American Health Care Act only takes the ACA and weakens it and gives tax credits back to the super rich. It's simply horrific, and the CBO is already being demonized by Republicans because everyone knows it will score as a budget buster that takes away health insurance from at least 15 million Americans.
CNN Anchor Ana Cabrera discussed this with right-leaning Washington Examiner editor Philip Klein after showing Connecticut Governor Malloy's opinion on the same bill. Naturally, the both-siderist CNN has to show diametrically opposing viewpoints, even though one side is clearly not basing their statements on fact:
MALLOY: It will take insurance away for millions of people. It will gut Medicaid; it will cause people to lose their lives; it will cause hospitals to close; it will cause other clinics to close.
I'm in my 60s. If I was to go to the marketplace under this plan, I would have to pay probably about $8,000 more for my coverage. That's what they're doing, folks. Everyone wake up and understand that this is repeal and replace with the emphasis on repeal and really not replace. What they're going to do is make you sicker.
CNN must contrast that realistic assessment of Trumpcare with a fully fallacious opinion of the other side: it doesn't hurt the maximum number of Americans. Klein's school of thought is based on the fiction that there is freedom of choice for health insurance. Of course there is, until you get sick or injured.
KLEIN: ....Obamacare's premiums are high because they force everyone to buy very comprehensive health insurance. Now, they say that's good because it provides more benefits, but what if you don't need that comprehensive health insurance? You're still paying a very high price to purchase more insurance that you need. And that's what's driving young people out of the insurance market and causing Obamacare to collapse. So, the solution is an additional government control. It's throughout those regulations to allow people to purchase the insurance that they want. If they want more comprehensive insurance, they could pay for it. If they don't and they just want a basic plan that covers them and protects them from financial ruin in the case of a major catastrophic illness, then they should be able to purchase that. That's what conservative health care has always been; that's what Republicans promised; that's what Paul Ryan is claiming this bill does, but it simply does not.
Klein pretends he doesn't understand that insurance is about making sure you're covered IF you need it, not WHEN you need it. And hey, if you "need" more coverage, just go buy it with money you don't have. Problem solved.
CABRERA: Now, the Congressional Budget Office still hasn't issued the report on how much this repeal plan would cost. That's expected to happen soon. Does that change the game at all or is it just another speed bump for a bill that Speaker Ryan seems determined to push through the House?
KLEIN: I think it's going to be problematic because it's going to re-enforce the conservative criticisms that I set up top, because it's going to show that it's still going to be very costly, because there is $100 billion in various grants to states. They're doling out probably hundreds of billions of dollars for all of this spending for the new tax credits that they're issuing, and also, because they're repealing most of the Obamacare's taxes, that's going to deprive them of tax revenue.
Thank you.
It would be great, Mr. Klein, if you understood insurance as well as you understand that budget minus tax revenue equals deficit, and that tax cuts and credits never "pay for themselves" as Trump's team wants everyone to believe again. It's voodoo economics redux!
