American Healthcare Act of 2017
In 2010, Congress passed the healthcare bill that is commonly referred to as Obamacare. Technically, it was called ACA ( Affordable Care Act). It has proven to be not affordable to everyone but the low wage earners who receive subsidies from the government. Middle class families have found their rates increasing, but the biggest cost is in the rising deductible cost at the beginning of the year. In the past, a $ 500 or $ 1000 deduction was not uncommon but now some families are running into deductibles that are as high as $ 10,000. The plan requires everyone to purchase health insurance regardless of the price. It is on the verge of crashing because of the high cost and the absence of insurance companies that are willing to offer insurance policies that will satisfy the law.
The new plan that was to be offered is called the American Healthcare Act of 2017 (AHCA). President Trump has made this a major goal in beginning his term of president. He has promised to repeal and replace Obamacare. The House of Representatives has offered a number of plans since 2010 to replace Obamacare. The new plan that was being promoted by Speaker of the House Paul Ryan and being backed by the President. At the Gordon County Republican Convention a couple of Saturdays ago, we had a chance to have some of this process explained to us by our Congressman, Tom Graves. We were able to ask him questions about healthcare that cleared up some of the questions that I had in my mind.
In trying to do research on the new healthcare bill as I was working on this column, I located the actual wording of the bill that Congressman Ryan has proposed. I could not follow the bill because the first page dealt with amending another bill which appeared to me to be Obamacare. After talking to Congressman Graves, I believe that I understand this a little bit better. They were not going to be able to get everything into this first bill that they would like. On the parts that were affected, Obamacare was being repealed and the new bill inserted.
To the layman like myself, I thought that they could just repeal all of Obamacare and pass a new bill. This is not possible because of the number of Republican Senators in the Senate. It took 60 votes in the Senate to pass Obamacare and a completely new bill to replace it would also take 60 votes. What can be done by the Senate is to amend Obamacare and rename it and this can be done with 51 votes. Anything that was not in Obamacare cannot be changed in this first bill. Everything that needs to be changed that was not in Obamacare will have to be changed in the second and third stages of fixing our healthcare system, things such as buying insurance across state lines will have to wait until there are 60 votes for it in the Senate. Limiting medical lawsuits ( Tort Reform) also will have to wait until there are 60 votes in favor of it. Keeping unmarried children living at home on parents insurance until they are 26 years old remains in the new plan. Insuring people with preexisting conditions remains in the new plan. The pre- existing condition part is the item that makes the plan very expensive to the insurance companies. Some of the people with pre- existing conditions will be assigned to all of the companies and the companies cannot refuse them. The new plan continues the ban on insurers setting annual or lifetime limits on the amounts that can be paid on coverages.
The new bill planned to change Medicaid. The low income participants who are receiving subsidies on their insurance from Obamacare may be transferred to one of the Medicaid plans. By the end of 2020, President Trump planned to close the Federal Medicaid Office in Washington and send the money directly to the states in the form of block grants for payments to participants by the states. Medicaid would become a state administered program after this time.
The President has promised that Medicare will not be affected by the changes in our healthcare system. At the same time, the new plan allows insurance companies to charge higher rates because of age. Anyone who lets their insurance policies end will pay a 30 percent penalty for the first year when they purchase a new policy.
When Obamacare began, there was a lot of talk about how many people did not have health insurance. The Democrats related this as if these people could not get healthcare treatment. This was not the case. Every hospital had a sign on the wall of their Emergency Room that said that if you did not have the money to pay for your treatment they would treat you anyway. The hospital absorbs the cost and pays for it with higher rates from their other hospital patients. There are many independent medical clinics that are staffed by a doctor or a physician’s assistant that will treat non- surgical illnesses at a reasonable one time rate. Many cities also have free medical clinics available.
To solve this problem or just improve it did not require Obamacare to scrap the best medical program in the world and have the government take over all medical programs. It appears that there were other motivations in this plan, one of them was to bring a large part of the nation’s economy under the control of the government. To get this plan through Congress took a lot of deliberate lying and even bribery to some of the Democratic members of Congress in order to get their vote. Not one Republican voted for the Obamacare bill.
Republicans attempted to bring the new bill to a vote on Thursday and Friday of last week and they did not have enough votes among the Republicans to pass it and there was no expected votes from the Democrats. They now must rework this bill or write a new one to solve the problems of Obamacare. As Obamacare begins to shut down on statewide basis, even the Democrats may decide to back a new bill.