GOP Senators Weigh Higher Health Premiums Possible Effect on Midterms

[question everything]

Republican senators are confronting a political challenge that is increasingly hard to ignore as they engage with voters during the July Fourth recess: Under their health-care overhaul, average premiums for a midlevel insurance plan would jump by 20% next January.

That means many people who don’t get insurance through work would see their premiums increase just a few months before the midterm elections, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. Premiums would fall in later years, in part because less-comprehensive plans would be offered by that time.

This highlights what some Republicans privately concede is a Catch-22 as GOP Senate leaders work to assemble a bill they can bring to the floor when Congress returns to Washington: Both passing a bill and not passing one carry political peril.

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“Tasked with honoring a promise seven years in the making, Republican leaders have instead put their caucus in a very big bind going into the midterm elections,” said David Bozell, president of ForAmerica, a grassroots-oriented conservative group that opposes the Senate bill.

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In Blanco, Texas, for example, a 40-year-old would see premiums go up by $494 in January under the Senate bill, according to an analysis of CBO data by the Century Foundation. In Nome, Alaska, premiums would rise by $2,376.

Bigger impacts would hit in later years, when average premiums fall for plans that offer fewer benefits than required under the ACA, but spending cuts to Medicaid spending would accelerate, raising costs for many Americans, according to the CBO.

The political Catch-22 has made it harder for Republicans to unify around a single bill. GOP senators have split, with centrists saying the legislation guts too much of the current health law and conservatives pushing to abandon the bill altogether because they say it doesn’t do enough to repeal the ACA.

More..

https://www.wsj.com/articles/senators-come-up-against-little-noticed-impact-of-gop-health-bill-1499166002

[Demsrule86]

1. If they fixed Obamacare...stabilizied the market...even GOP voters would be relieved.

Next , those GOP states that have not signed on to the Medicaid expansion could do so and save lives and money...the idea that if they don't repeal the ACA, they will somehow be in more trouble than if they fix it...is a paul Ryan lie...he knows better ,but he understands how hard it is to get healthcare and is betting that once it is gone the Dems won't be able to get it again...he may be right.

[Hoyt]

2. They will blame it on Obamacare because the repeal in both Bills is several years out.