Republicans Want You to Pay More for Healthcare
Deep Dives
Explore related topics with these Wikipedia articles, rewritten for enjoyable reading:
-
Affordable Care Act
13 min read
The article centers on the debate over Obamacare subsidies, but readers may not know the law's complex structure—how premium subsidies work, the marketplace tiers (Bronze through Platinum), cost-sharing mechanisms, and the political history of repeated repeal attempts since 2010
-
Health savings account
14 min read
The Republican proposal hinges on HSAs as an alternative to subsidies, but the article assumes readers understand how these tax-advantaged accounts work, their contribution limits, eligibility requirements tied to high-deductible plans, and why critics argue they favor wealthier Americans
-
Health care prices in the United States
12 min read
The article mentions that US healthcare costs are 'far higher than in other countries' without explaining why—this Wikipedia article covers the structural reasons including hospital consolidation, drug pricing, administrative costs, and lack of price controls that make American healthcare uniquely expensive
Republicans finally settled on a healthcare plan this week, as an alternative to renewing subsidies that help over 20 million people buy insurance. Their plan? Moving people to low-quality, high-cost plans, with a savings account to help them pay for some, certainly not all, of the additional healthcare costs they will incur if they need healthcare.
The bill from Senate Republicans is the latest iteration of the GOP’s same old plan to replace Obamacare, which is not much of a plan: The idea is that people pay more for healthcare, or forgo necessary care. Republicans are offering this vision again now as the Senate prepares to vote Thursday on whether to allow Obamacare subsidies to expire at the end of the month. Once the subsidies expire, millions of people will pay higher premiums or go uninsured.
The Republican plan would allow for the Obamacare subsidies to expire, and instead give people $1,000 or $1,500 in health savings accounts. Enrollees would not be able to use the savings accounts to pay their insurance premiums – and they would only get the savings accounts if they sign up for low-tier coverage with exceedingly high deductibles.
“Sicker people would certainly be worse off under this plan,” Larry Levitt, an executive vice president for health policy at KFF, tells Zeteo.
Republicans’ effort to raise healthcare costs for millions of people comes as polls show Donald Trump’s approval ratings are already in the toilet. A brutal US economy – the issue that delivered Trump the presidency – is the same issue dragging his numbers down now. Yet, both he and Republicans seem committed to making Americans spend more money on healthcare that they don’t have.
Apart from the Obamacare subsidy debate, Republicans have already voted to throw millions of people off Medicaid, the government health insurance program for low-income and disabled Americans, as part of Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill.”
One way or another, more pain is on the way. The only question is how much.
The damage is already mounting: By now, Americans on Obamacare plans have received notices that their costs are about to go way up. The deadline to sign up for a plan on the marketplace, for coverage that starts in January, is Dec. 15 – meaning that
...This excerpt is provided for preview purposes. Full article content is available on the original publication.