Officials: Trumpcare a disaster for NYS

Proposal would cut coverage for the poor and elderly

ALBANY, N.Y. >> The state Health Department offered a grimprognosis for New York if the House GOP’s repeal-and-replace Obamacare bill becomes law.

“Over 1 million New Yorkers would face significant loss of health care,” the agency said this week. “Over $4.5 billion in costs would be shifted to states, counties and safety net hospitals over the next four years, increasing the tax burden on residents and putting countless healthcare providers in jeopardy.”

By 2020, the impact on New York would be “at least $2.4 billion. … This burden could grow even larger when the impact of Medicaid block grants is taken into account.”

Additionally, “$400million in tax credits used by New Yorkers to purchase health insurance on the New York State of Health insurance exchange

would be lost and replaced in some cases with alternative subsidies which are not related ability to pay.”

Gov. Andrew Cuomo described the bill’s impact as catastrophic.

“The AARP says it will weaken Medicare and hike premiums for everyone over 50,” Cuomo said. “Millions of seniors could lose home care and nursing home coverage. Hospital leaders say staffing and services will be cut.”

He termed the bill “a direct assault on New York values, defunding Planned Parenthood, restricting access to abortion and reproductive health services and eliminating $400 million in means-tested credits that lowered insurance costs for low-income New Yorkers, while slashing taxes on the wealthy. In the end, people who will still have insurance will fall into two groups under this plan: older Americans and lower-income people who will pay more for coverage or lose it altogether, and higher-income people who will pay less.

“As bad as this bill is, it may get worse,” Cuomo said. “Far-right opponents of the bill in Congress are demanding changes. As disturbing and devastating as the proposed cuts would be, the final result could be downright bone-chilling.”

If there is a bright spot, it is that it could have been worse, said the Empire Center, a taxpayer watchdog group. The bill “would jeopardize coverage for hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers and eventually cost the state government billions of dollars,” the group said. “On the whole, however, it’s far less disruptive than previous GOP alternatives to Obamacare.”

The bill also carries a provision that runs contrary to New York’s official embrace of abortion as an indispensable part of the healthcare system here. According to the Empire Center, the bill “specifies that its proposed tax credits could not be used to buy insurance that covers abortions. However, New York regulations, as recently adjusted by the Cuomo administration, say that most policies sold in New York must cover abortions. In fact, stateregulated health plans are obliged to pay for the procedure without applying a co-payment, co-insurance, or deductible.”

The bill is backed by President Trump, but it appears to be dead for now in the Senate. The situation has raised the possibility there will be no action on the bill and Obamacare’s financial situation will continue to worsen until the plan collapses as costs outrun revenues.

Cuomo’s chief counsel, Alfonso David, told the online publication Vox the administration was readying contingency plans for the end of Obamacare. One thing being looked at is taking steps to have taxpayers subsidize health insurance if the GOP is successful in paring back the program.

“We think modifying the tax structure to penalize those who are unable to afford health care is nonsensical,” David told Vox. “To the extent Congress decides to adopt that approach, we are looking at various ways we can accommodate that change. New York and California provide an extraordinarily large state tax base, compared to the rest of the country. I’ll just leave my comments there.”