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Resistance to repeal will not be futile.
Resistance to repeal will not be futile.ACA's architects fought for the right reasons, with reasonable tactics. The only option now? Keep fighting to prevent a human catastrophe.
By Harold Pollack
healthinsurance.org contributor
December 12, 2016
A useful reminder: ACA helped millions of people
President-elect Trump and congressional Republicans pledge to “repeal and replace” ACA. They control the right levers of federal power to do so, but they also face huge challenges. Probably the biggest barrier is also the simplest: ACA is now helping millions of Americans of every background and income.
Perhaps ACA’s most important beneficiaries have been those with costly health conditions. Individuals with preexisting conditions are protected through guaranteed-issue policies, the elimination of annual and lifetime caps on benefits, and Essential Health Benefit requirements, which mandate that health insurance actually covers customary treatments when people become ill.
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The looming human catastrophe of repeal
As I have written here, low-income people and people with chronic illnesses hugely benefit from ACA. Yet many are piled in the wrong places. are disorganized, or are otherwise not the voters one needs to politically prevail in America. Several million people who directly benefit from ACA voted for Republican candidates pledged to repeal it, either because these voters didn’t know ACA was helping them, or because they believed ACA is so embedded in the American fabric that it can’t be overturned.
Republicans will indeed have great difficulty unwinding ACA without causing a human catastrophe for which they would pay dearly. If Democrats paid a heavy political penalty for “owning” health policy in the Obama years, Republicans will pay a similar penalty if they damage things while they control all three branches of the federal government. As I’ve noted elsewhere, Republicans resemble the bear who caught the car. The car won’t emerge unscathed, but the bear will probably regret catching up. Although the electorate divides along partisan lines in their overall assessment of ACA, Americans support almost every individual element of ACA. There is no way to repeal it without doing unpopular things and visibly hurting real people along the way.
Rep. Price, secretary-designate of HHS, has proposed “repeal and replace” efforts that the Congressional Budget Office estimates would increase the number of uninsured by roughly 22 million. Urban Institute researchers find that “repeal” without replace would leave the health system in worse shape than it was before ACA, doubling the number of uninsured to as many as 58 million. Such a measure would lead many insurers to exit state marketplaces entirely. The absence of an individual mandate alone would do deep damage to the individual and small-group insurance market. One assumes that Republicans wouldn’t pursue such a politically self-immolating course, though after this election season one can never fully know.
More More More: https://www.healthinsurance.org/blog/2016/12/12/resistance-to-repeal-will-not-be-futile/
President-elect Trump and congressional Republicans pledge to “repeal and replace” ACA. They control the right levers of federal power to do so, but they also face huge challenges. Probably the biggest barrier is also the simplest: ACA is now helping millions of Americans of every background and income.
Perhaps ACA’s most important beneficiaries have been those with costly health conditions. Individuals with preexisting conditions are protected through guaranteed-issue policies, the elimination of annual and lifetime caps on benefits, and Essential Health Benefit requirements, which mandate that health insurance actually covers customary treatments when people become ill.
.......................
The looming human catastrophe of repeal
As I have written here, low-income people and people with chronic illnesses hugely benefit from ACA. Yet many are piled in the wrong places. are disorganized, or are otherwise not the voters one needs to politically prevail in America. Several million people who directly benefit from ACA voted for Republican candidates pledged to repeal it, either because these voters didn’t know ACA was helping them, or because they believed ACA is so embedded in the American fabric that it can’t be overturned.
Republicans will indeed have great difficulty unwinding ACA without causing a human catastrophe for which they would pay dearly. If Democrats paid a heavy political penalty for “owning” health policy in the Obama years, Republicans will pay a similar penalty if they damage things while they control all three branches of the federal government. As I’ve noted elsewhere, Republicans resemble the bear who caught the car. The car won’t emerge unscathed, but the bear will probably regret catching up. Although the electorate divides along partisan lines in their overall assessment of ACA, Americans support almost every individual element of ACA. There is no way to repeal it without doing unpopular things and visibly hurting real people along the way.
Rep. Price, secretary-designate of HHS, has proposed “repeal and replace” efforts that the Congressional Budget Office estimates would increase the number of uninsured by roughly 22 million. Urban Institute researchers find that “repeal” without replace would leave the health system in worse shape than it was before ACA, doubling the number of uninsured to as many as 58 million. Such a measure would lead many insurers to exit state marketplaces entirely. The absence of an individual mandate alone would do deep damage to the individual and small-group insurance market. One assumes that Republicans wouldn’t pursue such a politically self-immolating course, though after this election season one can never fully know.
More More More: https://www.healthinsurance.org/blog/2016/12/12/resistance-to-repeal-will-not-be-futile/
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Worth the read. The bodies be stacking up beneath the bridges and in the ER's. I weep for our humanity.
15 replies
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