AHCA

Critical Point: House of Representatives is scheduled to vote on this bill BEFORE the Congressional budget Office determines what the bill will cost.  So representatives will vote before they know the impact of their votes.  But hey! What does it matter?  What they know is that taxes on wealthy will be reduced and Medicaid recipients will be reduced.  What more do they need to know?

Ryan Lies.  He says Obamacare is in a death spiral and he and his Republican colleagues are on a rescue mission.  WRONG!  Even national actuarial societies dispute Ryan's claims.  Obamacare is not failing.  Gosh - just like Palin spoke about death panels, now Ryan claims death spirals.  Republicans seem to have a problem claiming death fake outs.  How low can the Republicans go?

 Meanwhile, the following OPPOSE Trumpcare:
AARP
American Hospital Association
American medical Association

Here's what Trumpcare  (AHCA) would do:

Take the money no longer paid to Planned Parenthood for medical services to women and give it to community health centers - that either do not exist or do not have the capacity to provide screening and medical services to women.

Allow people to buy policies cross state lines - allowing people to buy the cheapest policy with the least amount of services, thereby dumbing down the availability of good quality health insurance plans.

Older Americans, aged 55 to 65, would have their policies increase by about $5,000 per year.
People who let their policy to lapse will be charged 30% more when they re-enroll.  We can only guess that people letting their policy lapse probably would do so because they might be short of funds, like maybe a job loss.

Medicaid would be paid by grants to the individual states and would freeze the number of people receiving Medicaid.
People will be allowed to put more money into a health savings account - but of course the person must have the money available in their personal budget to do that.

The budget deductions for health corporations allowed under the law will be removed, allowing health providers to include any payments to their CEO's in their income tax deductions.

If 10 million people loose their healthcare coverage, community hospitals will return to serving people with o coverage.

Six pages of the 66 page bill addresses how people who win sizable lotteries should loose their Medicaid benefits -I cant' imagine why they need 6 pages for this minor point, but there it is.

It's getting clearer for me.  The Obamacare bill includes a couple taxes on the wealthy - a higher tax on investments for the wealthy and a surtax on "Cadillac" healthcare plans - that will be repealed by the new AHCA bill.  This will be accompanied by reductions in subsidies - one case study showed that someone getting  $10,000 subsidy to buy insurance under Obamcre would get a $4,000 subsidy under the new bill.  THAT'S how this bill benefits the rich over the middle class and poor.

The AHCA bill has not been scored for its costs.  Normally, the budget office will do that before a bill is released.  We have no idea what this bill does to finances.

Republican comments really tell the story of the AHCA: The Utah Congressman who says people should choose between buying an Iphone ($399) and health insurance (costis thousands).  When criticized, the Congressman said he had been "inartful".  Then there's the Kansas Congressman who says the poor "will always be with us", don't want healthcare and don't take care of themselves AND cited Jesus.  These comments tell you what Republican Congressmen truly want from their healthcare plan.


I will continue to update this  post as I learn more.