When is a healthcare act not about healthcare but about tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans? When it’s Trumpcare, that’s when. When does a healthcare act rob Medicare of $170 billion, reducing the life of Medicare by three years, cause 14 million to lose their health insurance in the very first year, and 24 million by the year 2026? When it’s Trumpcare, that’s when. When does a healthcare act remove millions of seniors living in nursing homes from Medicaid, leaving their children to care for them or to go without care at all? When it’s Trumpcare, it does. But now it’s on hold.
How is it that all these things and even much worse can happen because of a healthcare act? I’ll tell you how, when it really isn’t a healthcare act at all, but a tax bill designed to cut taxes on the very rich. Trumpcare, that so-called healthcare act, will give a $215 billion tax cut to those in the top 2 percent earning bracket of all Americans over the next 10 years. Maybe they need the money to get better healthcare coverage, you reckon?
Truth is Trumpcare will be a disaster for anyone on Medicare, Social Security, seniors and the very poor who depend on Medicaid for health insurance-most for the very first time in their lives. Those on Medicaid comprise the largest segment of the 24 million losing healthcare under Trumpcare.
Trumpcare advocates claim those who buy their own insurance will see a 10 percent decrease in cost. At first the costs would spike 15-20 percent more than they would have under Obamacare, but by the end of the decade the average policy cost would be 10 percent less. It’s how they get to that 10 percent that’s troubling. They simply cut most things now covered by your policies. Things you need!
According to the New York Times the 10 percent is achieved by penalizing older patients and rewarding younger ones. Older patients would find their premiums so expensive they would simple leave the market and join the ranks of the uninsured. The remaining pool of people would be comparatively younger and healthier and thus the least expensive to cover. Without some of the Obamacare mandates for coverage, changes would make premiums skimpier and cheaper, but with higher deductibles. It’s a typical GOP plan — pay more for less.
The GOP doesn’t want to help the poor and needy; they never have. To even suggest they want to improve Obamacare is ludicrous. The majority of Republicans just want to repeal Obamacare, they could care less about a replacement. That’s why they will have trouble passing Trumpcare.
Eliminating programs that help the poor or seniors, even entitlement programs is the Republicans’ dream. Our nightmare. The GOP doesn’t care one bit for Social Security, they never have. They opposed its initial passage. So, when they say they want to improve it; WATCH OUT! They opposed Medicare from its inception and now they say they want to improve it. RUN FOR YOUR LIFE.
They’ve always opposed Medicaid. As a matter of fact they’ve always opposed any form of government help for the poor, especially assisted healthcare. Remember what they did to Hillary when she tried to get government assisted healthcare right after Bill Clinton became president? She didn’t have a prayer.
Just mention the word “welfare” in front of Republicans and watch them turn purple. The Republicans are all about helping the rich get richer. They even want waitresses to pay a higher tax rate than Donald Trump did in 2005. Those loopholes in the tax code help the very rich.
Here’s what Trumpcare would have done: Begin the process that will lead to the elimination of federal Medicare and Medicaid, take a whack at Social Security and reduce taxes on the wealthiest of all Americans. Don’t kid yourself for one split second the Republican’s new healthcare plan, which we call Trumpcare, is not a healthcare plan at all it’s just another one of the many Republican plans to help the rich. I’ve always called those plans “welfare for the rich.”
Eventually Republicans want to get the federal government out of healthcare and turn it over to the states which can’t come close to affording Medicare and Medicaid for those in need. Of course that‘s what they want to do with all federal assistance programs for the poor, the seniors, hungry children, and women.
Trumpcare must not become law. As of now Sen. Dean Heller says he opposes Trumpcare. Should Trumpcare ever pass the House and then to the Senate, hold him to it.
Glen McAdoo, a Fallon resident, can be contacted at glen@phonewave.net.