Yes, as I said social issues.
This is already happening in states that refused the Obamacare Medicaid expansion. Rural hospitals in TN have been closing at an alarming rate since the State Assembly rejected the expansion, leaving many residents 50 miles or more from the nearest hospital. When Trumpcare starts scaling back the expansion you’ll see the same thing in other states.
I have thought all along that because of this, they should just change the name from ObamaCare to anything else, plant a flag and declare success. Then work on fixing it. It’s the Obama label that has the WH and scrotus pathological.
It’s the American political cycle. Poor people vote for Democrats and the Democrats improve their situation enough for them to join the middle class. Then they vote for Republicans and the Republicans send them back into poverty.
Over $100K too, but starting at 50K Republicans usually start winning voters by healthy margins. The GOP made sure to take care of them too in this bill.
The poor, yeah, pretty much screwed by the bill which is why it’s so terrible. But I guess the GOP figures they are unreliable anyway and aren’t down with most of the GOP’s platform. The Democrats being the party of the poor is better for both parties.
This bill doesn’t really do that. It actually takes a load off the middle class, with more generous subsidies and making it easier to just forego insurance(or buy a cheaper, nonqualifying plan).
But it’s terrible for older people, 50-64. Even in the middle class. Sure their subsidies are larger but their premiums will be way, way bigger.
It’s bad compared to current law(ACA). It’s still a lot better than pre-ACA. Our beef with ACA was always that it took too much out of young people’s hides to pay for older Americans. This balances things a little more fairly, IMO.
But regardless of the moral aspect, regardless of whether you think young people should pay a third of what old people pay or a fifth of what old people pay, young people are flouting the mandate. We need them in the exchanges. The stick isn’t working, so we’ll try the carrot of cheap premiums closer to the actual risk they pose to insurers.
The purpose of ACA was never and should never have been to help older people pay less and younger people pay more. It was to get as many people as possible insured. If older people paying more and younger people paying less gets more people insured, then that’s an improvement. Of course, CBO says that’s not going to happen and they know more than I do.
If the goal is to get everyone covered at a price that doesn’t gouge one or under-cover the other, wouldn’t UHC be the best option?
There are some little problems with this: a lot of the elderly are already having trouble affording care under the ACA, and the AHCA exacerbates it. Want to see how fast a Republican voter can convert? Mess with their health care bills and make it more difficult to get care.
I doubt you’re going to get a lot of the younger generation without the mandate. They’re invincible. When you’re dealing with a whole bunch of other bills on a limited budget, and you’re in good health, health insurance is likely one of the first things to get passed over.
I know, I used to be one of them. 
And I really didn’t need either medical care or insurance until I hit my 40’s.
That’s the problem, there is no effective mandate. An effective mandate is illegal. So they need to be induced into the system with cheaper premiums.
That’s actually quite debatable. First off, premiums initially were lower than expected and this year’s adjustment apparently puts them back into line with what was originally predicted (e.g., by that incompetent CBO). Second, a large number of the folks were insulated from the premium increases because their subsidies go up too, so they are not likely to lead to the sort of exodus-of-the-healthy death spiral that people worry about. And, in fact, the CBO concluded that the market under ACA would likely have remained stable. (The CBO does predict that eventually the Republican plan will, after many years, lead to somewhat lower premiums but that is apparently because their plan is so heavily skewed in favor of the young and healthy that it will lead to an exodus of the old and sick from the market.)
So, while ACA was not great (a mediocre substitute for something like single-payer), it would probably continue along with reasonable success (e.g., the lower uninsured rate it has led to) if not for Republicans now undermining it. Of course, if the Republicans actually worked with Democrats to improve it on a bipartisan basis, that would be even better. But, since the Republicans aren’t interested in policy solution (just giving tax cuts to the wealthy and letting the free market handle everything), that’s not going to happen.
To be clear about the CBO, I didn’t like Republican attacks on it because unlike political parties and their shills, the CBO is fair. Fair doesn’t mean accurate though. You can disagree with their assumptions, but there’s a right way to do it and Republicans aren’t doing it right.
My own opinion, non-expert though it be, is that the old and sick aren’t going to actually leave the market because they can’t. And lower premiums will induce the young to sign up. So I think we may see an increase in exchange enrollment. The Medicaid numbers the CBO came up with are probably quite accurate though, and the Republicans really need to cut back on those tax cuts for the rich and fund Medicaid better.
I don’t see how there will be lower premiums without requiring the young to sign up.
There will be lower premiums for the young, which will make getting insurance more attractive. Part of the reason young people had to be forced to buy insurance was because ACA set the price so high for them to older people could get a break.
Young people are probably willing to buy insurance at rates commensurate with their individual risk. It actually doesn’t make sense financially for a young person to buy a comprehensive plan at the rate a 50-year old would pay. Thus the attempt at force. For most young people, a catastrophic plan makes more sense, and even going entirely without is rational if you are low income. For a healthy person, the best way to stay that way is good food and a safe neighborhood and access to a good job. Having health insurance isn’t worth much to someone that doesn’t have access to those other things.
But since some of us are impugning bad motives to the Republicans, let’s not let the Democrats off the hook here. The Democrats weren’t trying to help the young with ACA. They were trying to USE the young to bring down health care costs for older people. Older people who vote.
Like Social Security?
The young will age.
If they are fortunate, yes. If they are unfortunate they’ll never benefit. They’ll pay for old people and then they’ll die. And be told the whole time that wanting something for themselves is selfish and irresponsible.
Young people don’t get sick or injured? They all make good money and have employer-provided insurance?
C’mon man.
The claim that that is happening is simply more party propaganda. More fearmongering lies from a party that has nothing else.
If they got sick or injured as much as anyone, then we wouldn’t need to use them to bring premiums down, would we?