SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
from the or-we-could-have-the-coverage-congress-has dept.
Trump Signs Executive Order That Could Effectively Gut Affordable Care Act's Individual Mandate
President Trump signed an executive order late Friday giving federal agencies broad powers to unwind regulations created under the Affordable Care Act, which might include enforcement of the penalty for people who fail to carry the health insurance that the law requires of most Americans.
The executive order, signed in the Oval Office as one of the new president's first actions, directs agencies to grant relief to all constituencies affected by the sprawling 2010 health-care law: consumers, insurers, hospitals, doctors, pharmaceutical companies, states and others. It does not describe specific federal rules to be softened or lifted, but it appears to give room for agencies to eliminate an array of ACA taxes and requirements.
[...] Though the new administration's specific intentions are not yet clear, the order's breadth and early timing carry symbolic value for a president who made repealing the ACA — his predecessor's signature domestic achievement — a leading campaign promise.
[Continues...]
Congressional Budget Office: Obamacare Repeal Would Be Catastrophic
U.S. Uncut reports
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has released its official analysis of the Republican plan to repeal Obamacare, and top Republicans hate it.
The CBO based its findings[1] on H.R. 3762 (the Healthcare Freedom Reconciliation Act), which was the 2015 Affordable Care Act repeal bill that passed the House of Representatives. The nonpartisan budgetary agency determined that within one year of President Obama's signature healthcare reform law being repealed, roughly 18 million people would lose their health insurance. In following years, when the expansion of Medicaid codified into the Affordable Care Act is also eliminated, the number of uninsured Americans would climb to 27 million, then to 32 million.
Additionally, for those remaining Americans who didn't lose their health coverage from the initial repeal process, health insurance premiums would skyrocket by as much as 25 percent immediately after repeal. After Medicaid expansion is taken away, premiums costs would have gone up by roughly 50 percent. The costs continue to climb, with the CBO estimating a 100 percent increase in premium costs by 2026.
CBO analysts particularly focused on H.R. 3762's repeal of the health insurance mandate that requires all Americans to have health insurance, and the bill's elimination of subsidies for low-income families that make health insurance more affordable. The CBO found that pulling out those cornerstones of the Affordable Care Act would "destabilize"[2] the health insurance market, leading to a dramatic increase in premium costs.
[1] PDF Google cache
[2] Duplicate link in TFA.
House majority leader says no set timeline on Obamacare replacement
The republican party still has no plan to put into place as a replacement for the ACA. In fact:
Asked how soon House Republicans could unite behind a plan to replace the Affordable Care Act, McCarthy said Friday in a "CBS This Morning" interview, "I'm not going to put a set timeline on it because I want to make sure we get it right."
But McCarthy promised that an ACA substitute will be "one of the first actions we start working on."
(Score: 2) by sjames on Saturday January 21 2017, @08:33PM
$300/month is way too high for a person in their late 20s. $450 is simply outrageous. We must address the problem of simple medications that cost $0.03 to make costing $10. Do that and insurance premiums can be more like $45 a month. THAT is affordable healthcare.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 21 2017, @08:58PM
The high cost of insurance isn't paying for the $0.03 pill or the $100 EpiPen. It's paying for the $50,000 a year state of the art biologics or $16,000 a year Truvada.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by KiloByte on Saturday January 21 2017, @09:51PM
or $16,000 a year Truvada
From Wikipedia:
The wholesale cost in the developing world is about 6.06 to 7.44 USD per month.[5] In the United States, as of 2016, the wholesale cost is about 1415.00 USD per month.[8]
And here is everything you need to know about United States' medicine problems. You do have way more efficient manufacturing (modern technology, benefits of scale) and insanely better distribution network (reliable electricity everywhere, good road network, etc) so the cost should be a small fraction of what it is in the developing world, not 200 times as much.
But then, who would pay for marketing, congresscritter campaign donations, lawyers and stock price manipulation funds? Second point alone makes any reform unlikely.
Ceterum censeo systemd esse delendam.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 21 2017, @10:45PM
I completely agree. But, the other plans weren't that much cheaper.
Medication is a large part of the problem, as is excessive testing. Tort reform won't make much of a dent, however, if people are no longer forced to sue in order to have coverage for their injuries, you may see that part of the bill come down somewhat.
Around here, the people voted for something like Obamacare or Romneycare back in the early '90s, but the health insurers had their bribes in and the legislature removed the portions necessary for it to function. Eventually the whole system collapsed requiring that things be put back sort of like they were before hand.
I wonder what all these people supporting the repeal of Obamacare would do when they no longer can buy health insurance and their company can't afford to pay for it either.