The vote in the House was close, but the American Health Care Act passed 217-213. Now it’s on to the Senate to see if we can get a bill that a) can pass; and b) can be worked out with the House’s version in conference committee.
It won’t be easy, but it can be done – and I think Republicans understand their differences on these issues aren’t big enough to warrant letting the failing ObamaCare stand.
One thing that will help a lot is if people realize what a bunch of bullfeathers they’re being fed with this whole business about pre-existing conditions. ObamaCare requires that people with pre-existing conditions who don’t already have insurance be allowed to sign up for it, and be charged premiums no different than those who are totally healthy. While this sounds wonderfully compassionate, it goes completely against everything that makes the economics of insurance work – which is why it’s been one of the leading drivers of soaring premiums since ObamaCare took effect.
And because of this, it’s one of the leading causes of ObamaCare’s failure and the need to replace it with something better.
The Democrats and the media would have you believe that repealing and replacing ObamaCare means people with pre-existing conditions will never be able to get coverage. That is simply not true. The House-passed AHCA sets up a $130 billion fund (over 10 years) that will help states pay for high-risk pools for people with pre-existing conditions. How does this work? If you are already sick and you don’t have insurance, you will apply for coverage through this federally funded pool.
Now, why do it this way? Why not just require the insurers to cover everyone at the same rate? Wouldn’t that be more fair?
No, because that would mean people who will consume far less in terms of health care services would pay the same as those who consume a lot. And because insurers can’t charge more for high-utilizers, that means everyone’s premiums will go up even as the insurers themselves lose money on the deal and find themselves incentivized to get out of markets entirely.
We’ve been seeing insurers leave ObamaCare exchanges on a steady pace for the past three years, and this is the reason. Because ObamaCare doesn’t allow them to price their products reasonably, they can’t make money.
A high-risk pool would cost the taxpayers some money. But it would cost less than we’re likely to pay in ObamaCare premium subsidies, and more importantly, it would allow healthy people to buy insurance within a pool that will utilize far fewer services and allow insurers to charge much lower premiums.
The mainstream media don’t like it when we call them fake news. But when they tell you the Republican bill is abandoning people with pre-existing conditions, that is simply fake news. It does no such thing. This $130 billion fund will make sure their needs are met while protecting everyone else from having to deal with soaring premiums because already-sick people are in a risk pool where they don’t belong.
By the way, when we talk about people who are already sick, don’t have insurance and want to get it, we’re talking about a very small percentage of the population. Fully 96 percent of the country will see its premiums reduced by the AHCA. The other 4 percent are driving up costs for everyone else – not by any fault of their own, but because Obama and the Democrat insisted on putting them in the same pool with everyone else.
That was always a disastrous idea, and the results have been exactly what we predicted. The Republican approach is far better, and the media claims that people with pre-existing conditions are being left out in the cold are the definition of fake news.
