New Health Care Bill Not Good for People of Modest Means

As I post this, the AHCA has gone down in a ball of flames. Not, as I had hoped, because it took money from the poor and gave it to the rich, It failed in the House because it didn't take enough money away from poor people.

I still believe the points I make in this letter are the things our country needs to think about in terms of health care.

PS: I got a form letter back saying that we need to repeal and replace ACA. Same old song and dance.

Mr. Jeremy Lippert

2443 Rayburn House Office Building

Washington, DC 20515

Dear Mr. Lippert,

I have looked at the better.gop site which proposes an ACA replacement, and I believe it will be a worse deal for the struggling people of this country. I was referred to that site by one of Rep. Coffman’s aides, so I have reason to believe it is the one he supports.

**First, it looks like you all will be relying on tax credits and HAS’s to do the bulk of the work on trying to make health insurance affordable, those trusty old standbys of Republican policy.

Those ideas would probably work fine for me. My husband and I both work full time in professional jobs and would be able to pay the premium, save money in an HAS and wait for our tax credit.

It’s not going to work at all for my sister who makes $40,000/year, is a single mom and has two kids to take care of. The premiums for a family are around $18,000 this year. I SERIOUSLY doubt that the tax credits are going to make that premium affordable for her. Plus, she has to wait til tax time to get them. Do you really think she can afford to do that? And really, how is she going to put anything away in an HSA when she needs the money for—oh—things like food and shelter?

It’s typical of rich people like you (and me, truth be told) to think that tax credits and shelters will solve the problem. They only work for people who have enough money to wait for all those benefits.

**Second, I find it disturbing that you don’t make any mention of bending down the cost curve, except to say that you’ll let companies sell across state lines. There’s not even any evidence that insurance companies want to do that. It takes a lot of investment to develop deals with providers in other states, and they would have to be sure of the market before they’ll take a risk like that. That’s a weak piecemeal solution at best.

How about allowing providers to negotiate lower prices with drug companies? Medicare is prohibited from doing that. The pharmaceutical companies with their campaign contributions have carved themselves out a nice little exception. They raise prices 100, 200, and—not uncommonly—5,000 % because they can. Nice monopolies they have going. They get their profit margins of 20% on all their medications and Americans in particular suffer the consequences.

And, let’s look at for-profit insurance companies. They spend 30% of their money on marketing and underwriting NOT on helping their customers. Shameful.

And the doctors and hospitals are not blameless, either. They are all making tons of money off of us, which is why  1 out of every 6 dollars in this country goes to health care. That’s ridiculous.

We have the most costly and inefficient health care system among our peers, and often terrible outcomes besides. I’m glad that people are marching in the streets about it. They should have  been way before now.