We all knew this was coming. When the GOP members in the US Congress passed their highly coveted tax cuts bill in December 2017 with a huge price tag of adding $1.5 trillion dollars to the US deficit over 10 years, but they did it by sabotaging the ACA/ Affordable Care Act/ Obamacare. The republicans needed even more monies to pay for 2017 GOP donor class tax cuts bill to where they eliminated the mandate requirement from Obamacare. The mandate requirement insured that more healthy young peoples were obligated to purchase health insurance by charging them a fine if they opted out of the program. This helped spread the risk for the insurance companies which made the premiums less expensive.
When the GOP decided to do away with this individual mandate, it was inevitable that the insurance premiums would sky rocket. This fact has recently been verified by a non partisan report published by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). These increased premium bills will be delivered just in time when voters will be preparing to vote in the November 2018 elections and this is while these GOP congressional representatives have been figuring out that their TAX CUTS BILL IS A DUD.
Here’s the rest of the story…
On May 23, 2018, Alison R. Parker of Shareblue penned the following report, “It’s official: GOP sabotage to blame for double-digit premium increases”
“The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has spoken: Americans are about to see major spikes in their health insurance premiums. And the Republican Party is squarely to blame for it.”
“Republicans couldn’t manage to fully repeal Obamacare, so instead they chipped away at the law’s foundation. And now the Congressional Budget Office has confirmed that Americans are about to pay the very real price.”
According to the CBO’s analysis, health insurance premiums will rise by double-digit percentages in 2019.
“Insurers are expected “to raise premiums for benchmark plans offered through the marketplaces in 2019 by an average of roughly 15 percent over the premiums charged in 2018,” the report notes.”
“In addition, “premiums for non-group health insurance will be about 10 percent higher in 2019.”
“What does the CBO say is largely behind these spikes?”
“Well, they likely wouldn’t happen “if the individual mandate penalty remained in place and was enforced.”
“That would be the individual mandate that Trump and the Republicans succeeded in doing away with by cramming the repeal into their tax scam bill in December 2017.”
“That sabotage will also lead to millions of Americans losing their health insurance entirely. “The number of uninsured people is projected to rise by 3 million in 2019, mainly because of the elimination of the penalty associated with the individual mandate and the higher premiums resulting from that change,” the CBO notes.”
“That number rises by another 3 million over the following two years, on net, as more people adjust to the fact that they no longer face the mandate penalty,” the report warns.”
“Despite Republican attempts to deride and demolish it, Obamacare only grew in popularity over the years, as more and more people were finally able to obtain health insurance and access care. The individual mandate was integral to making the overarching system function. It ensured that healthy people would be on the rolls to balance out those with chronic illnesses who have costly health care needs.”
“Doing away with the mandate and the associated penalties means that young, generally healthy people may choose to forgo insurance because they don’t want to pay for it. And thus insurers are taking in fewer premiums while paying out a lot in claims for those who are not so fortunate.”
“And it is those people who will either have to give up their insurance, or break the bank trying to pay for their rising premiums and their medical care.”
“Republicans have mendaciously claimed that anyone, including cancer patients, can simply go to the emergency room for all of their medical needs. And House Speaker Paul Ryan insisted all alongthat the only people who might lose their coverage due to his party’s attacks on Obamacare are those who don’t care about keeping it.”
“Certainly, some of those younger and healthier people may make the choice to go without, now that they’re free from the penalty.”
“But others in far more dire circumstances will not lose insurance by their own volition. They simply won’t be able to afford to pay for it, thanks to the GOP’s cruel efforts.”
Gronda Morin 
It upsets me every time I see those pictures of the GOP Congressmen smiling after their horrendous tax bill passed. They remind me of the most foul characters in Dickens’s books 😦 — Suzanne
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Dear Suzanne,
This attack by GOP in the US Congress on Obamacare is beyond cruel and senseless. Hopefully this can be fixed, once the democrats gain the majority position in the US House in November 2018.
Dicken’s describes these characters well.
Thanks a million times over for all of your support and for this reblog.
Hugs, Gronda
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Reblogged this on Musings on Life & Experience and commented:
This is just awful. It should go down in historical infamy.
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Gronda, good post. I have noted before the President and GOP leaders in Congress own Obamacare. The majority of Americans have asked that it be stabilized and improved, but not repealed. Any law this big needs to be improved over time. Right now, if Obamacare fails, it is on the President and GOP’s shoulders, it is that simple.
Instead of improving it, they have sabatoged it for years. From the aggressive state stances that did not let Medicaid expand in 19 states, to naysaying to taking actions that made increasing premiums higher. Senator Marco Rubio led an effort in the Senate that defunded 89% of the risk corridor premiums to insurers for taking on adverse risk. These risk corridors were used with Medicare Part D rollout. Rubio bragged on this, but in essence, the GOP screwed Americans to win a political argument.
The President did the same by eliminating the subsidies to insurers for poor people who make less than 2 1/2 X the poverty limit. Trump, in essence, screwed people to win a political point. He said it would only effect insurer profits, but the CBO said the US budget would increase $10 billion as a result, directly contradicting the President. The people actually impacted most were the unsubsidized folks as premiums go up.
We have a poverty problem and declining middle class problem in the US. What Trump, Rubio, and the GOP have done is made their premiums increase even more. And, they blame all of this on Obama. Obamacare is not perfect and needs improvement. The GOP needs to step up and help Americans and stop their posturing and lying.
Keith
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Dear Keith,
There is a reason “Dollar Stores” are increasing by leaps and bounds in numbers across the country. The executives recognize that there is now a permanent underclass, peoples trapped by a system that is set up to insure the impoverishment of millions of Americans.
This is what the republicans have helped to set up by sabotaging Obamacare; passing the GOP 2017 tax-cuts bill that is paid for by adding $1.5 trillion dollars to the US deficit over 10 years; and then cutting back on safety net programs.
As you said, the deferential between what a CEO gets paid VS.the front-line employees is obscene and income inequality has been exacerbated by the GOP president in the White House and those in the US Congress.
I’m now at the point of saying forget Obamacare; I’m now for Medicare for All.
Hugs, Gronda
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A healthy nation is a step in the right direction. Smirking, already wealthy, congressmen is a step in the wrong direction.
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Dear Roger,
This will come back to bite the republicans in the upcoming November elections. President Obama’s healthcare bill that is being thrashed was based on republican principles. This program copied the republican Mitt Romney’s health care plan that he created for the State of Massachusetts when he was its governor. He based this program on an outline proposed by a conservative think tank.
In the US there is universal health insurance Medicare for older peoples which is government run. It is my opinion that any democrat running for an elected position should push for this Medicare to cover everyone.
The program is very popular with the elderly and it is government run. This will be resisted by republicans. But they had their chance.
Hugs, Gronda
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Thanks for that insight Gronda.
November will be the testing ground, but nothing less than a substantial victory will do for the Democrats. A few small gains and the Republicans can play the ‘Every Party had to expect a small dip at Mid-Terms’ card.
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This article seems a little partisan, please take no offense, so I’ll step back and make my bi-partisan note, from the bent of a 20 yr consultant in this space of healthcare and insurance. Both sides have motivations – liberal left – single payor, or “Medicare for all” or wealth re-distribution via the ACA. The Right is a little more simple, anything other than what the left wants, and seemingly not even sure what they want. Both pander to hospitals, insurance companies, large publicly traded insurance brokerages (not the smaller guys believe me), and my personal favorite, pharmaceutical companies. So don’t for a minute believe both elected Democrats and Republics are not in the pockets of these folks and having their pockets lined by these constituencies. They all do it – Obama just had such a great smile and podium rhetoric that he made us feel he was on our side – he entirely pandered to insurance companies’ demands and did not even so much as whisper pharma, or hospitals, or regulating either. Hospitals and docs btw are just about the only service providers I can think of in the U.S. that have no regulatory body. You wanna bill me $500 bucks for a staple in my knee and $75 for 1 motrin, have at it….no one regulates this stuff. That said at the very least, at minimum, to the “Medicare or all” folks out there, we can see what the allowable charge is in Medicare, anywhere in the land….though I don’t support a government takeover of healthcare in the very slightest, I get the point. And from a pure transparency perspective, I totally get it. I like that I can find the charge of anything via Medicare.
That said, I don’t want what they have in Canada or the UK at all. It’s great for a sneeze and wheeze or quick stitch in the head, but I can speak from experience in one of my first start-ups where we had a board member as the most senior non-UK citizen managing and trying to save the NHS – he said, and I quote “If I have more than a fever, I’m hopping on a plan back to the U.S. It’s a disaster here”…and that was over 10 years ago. So do some Google research and you’ll discover quickly how bankrupt and jacked up the NHS is now, it’s quite sad. They’re debating telling overweight smokers to get to the back of the line, they are not as “important” because they choose to smoke and eat, no joke.
Back on Liberal left and Conservative Right – I don’t agree either will accomplish their goals without some rational thought. In my daily travels I talk to people who loath Trump and his agenda, conversely I talk to just as many people who felt that way about Obama and even more so now, the Liberal Left. Same comment on the ACA, and as much as it pains me to point this out, I have statistical evidence now from our clients we’ve helped over the years, that proves they do things around health insurance for their families or businesses now aligning directly with their politics. So healthcare now is entirely partisan as far as I’m concerned, I see it every day.
So reality to me is this, we all can’t seem to get along around this and somehow I guess we’ll end up with the Trumpers moving towards the pre-ACA plans/options, and the Liberal Left, moving to where they are now, the ACA. Ironic thing is the “poor” in this cartoon had Medicaid before the ACA and now with 400% federal poverty line for premium reductions, still make out. Additonally, there are plans that are less expensive that “make” you make some life choices….wanna smoke and eat BK every day, you pay more. If I step back, that’s entirely fair, those are personal choices with personal consequences. Alternatively, if I run marathons (I do not) eat vegan, can do 100 pushups, have a resting heartbeat of 50, have healthy digestive health, don’t smoke, or drink alcohol, am I supposed to feel good paying a premium rate designed for the smoking, unhealthy eater? This is the nucleus of the real problem and what folks seem afraid to address – when I was invited to the White House in 2014 around the already troubled ACA, it was amazing to me that no energy was spent addresses this issue. I sat tight lipped for fear of being beaten in a hallway if I opened my mouth.
What bothers me is no one pounding the table about a couple who lived conservatively, saved money, paid off their little home, sent kids to college, own 2 mid-sized average USA- made sedans (paid off) and can now retire at 60 and earn a little money for odds and ends. They have no debt, had great personal responsibility but, see a premium bill for an ACA plan that is larger than the mortgage they used to have, to the tune of 2, 3, 4 x. That’s unconscionable to me. They lived right, did well, ain’t rich, and now we penalize them. That is just not the American way. “Google” the professor grading on a socialized system and you’ll get if but nothing else, a lesson in what the producers, or folks who do “right” end up doing when graded with a socialized methodology…..beyond sad and reminds me of what’s going on in the U.S. right now around healthcare and other things.
What is clear to me is the healthcare system, though failing, is already a socialized system and has proven that model won’t work because it doesn’t work. Give folks choice and figure out a more non-governmental way to allow folks to get healthcare, and pay for what they get. First thing we need to do is amend the minimum essential benefits in the ACA and create a regulatory body over hospitals that make it illegal to upcharge more than say, 300% of Medicare’s allowable charges. I see 3,000% every single day….so 300% is a steal.
Last thing, again, direct correlation to republican states and democratic states, are the massively rising religious-based health plans. One in particular in Atlanta is the fastest growing company in Georgia, and is taking on customers faster than anything I’ve seen since the early 1990s. But guess, what, you have to pledge a belief of some sort in a “supreme being”….not my God, or a God, or a Christian God, or Buddhist being….a “supreme being”….that’s about it…they pre-x big stuff for 1-2 years then cover it for major medical, and separately (like the 1980s) have physician office visit, urgent care, pharmacy benefits that are segregated slightly from the pre-x. I commend them for creativity as I’ve “non-believers” quickly see a light and become “believers” when they’re looking at great benefits for 1/2 – 1/4 the cost of the ACA plans.
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