Myth and Mayhem

As always when addressing the healthcare topic I begin with reminding readers there is no such thing as Obamacare. Republicans, most notably Mitt Romney in his 2012 Presidential Campaign dubbed the Affordable Care Act "Obamacare" in an effort to demonize it and turn it into a negative. Obama in a very clever political maneuver embraced it and turned it into a positive.

Just a week out from the general election, the news is jam packed with all the headlines that insurance premiums are going up in the A.C.A. insurance exchanges from 22% to 25% or as much as 40% depending on whose figures you use, big discrepancy between 22 and 40, don't you think? Here are some basic facts about the increases, less than one percent of those using the exchanges will face an increase directly from their pocket. For the rest, because they can't afford it, the federal subsidies will pick up that increase. Does that mean the impact on that one percent doesn't matter? Absolutely not. It matters so much that a remedy was factored into the A.C.A. when it passed. It was understood from the beginning that the A.C.A. would face significant growing pains in it's first ten years so a subsidy was written in that would go to the insurance companies to absorb initial increases but Senator Marco Rubio got legislation passed that eliminated that subsidy and it's now going into effect and these direct premium increases are beginning, so send a thank you letter to Marco Rubio, champion of the people. Republicans were calling the A.C.A. a job killer four years before it even went into effect so their willingness to engage in fact free rhetoric is well established. They have had many opportunities in the past twenty-five years to address this desperate national crisis but they haven't because they don't want to. They want to simply ignore it because they genuinely believe it isn't important and that healthcare in the United States should always be a privilege and never a right.

Premiums have been rising in employer based health insurance, which is where the majority of Americans get it. Republicans blame the A.C.A. which is a lie. Those premiums have risen because they can, it's greed driven and no more complicated than that.

Twenty-seven million people have insurance under the A.C.A. who never had it before and the Republicans have tried more times than you can count to repeal it and they still want to. If Donald Trump is elected President they will get to do it. The Trump and Republican mantra is repeal and replace. Repeal they most certainly will but replace they will not. They extol the virtues of Health Savings Accounts, which have been around a very long time and have zero benefit to poor people and most middle class citizens. The second thing is the long drumbeat of buying health insurance across state lines. They'll tell you it will bring down costs because of competition and everyone who wants insurance will be able to afford it. That's another lie. What competition? A half-dozen major corporations control the health insurance industry and very soon it will probably be three. In the handful of States that have very strict insurance regulations to protect the consumer those companies just won't insure people. All of the good things associated with the A.C.A. will be washed away. We will see a major purge of sick people from the insurance rolls because that's the way it was and insurance companies will do whatever they want and increase their already fat profit margins.

Trump and the Republicans won't tell you what they will replace the A.C.A. with because they have no plan except to return to business as usual before the A.C.A. That is their plan. Sound good to you?