The “American Health Care Act” was passed by the Republican-dominated House of Representatives before the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office could determine how much it would cost and who would be covered. The CBO has finished the analysis, and the AHCA score is, basically GOP +1, Americans less than zero. 14 million Americans would be without health insurance next year, 23 million within a decade. In states that seek waivers from providing essential health coverage mandates, a feature of the bill, insurance would be priced out of reach for many people with preexisting conditions. There would be a new tier of plans at lower cost that don’t actually cover major medical risks, so the CBO doesn’t count the projected buyers as insured.
The cynical, life-threatening measure might reduce the federal budget by $119 billion over a decade, less than the $150 billion in savings projected by Paul Ryan, who wants to use any health care savings to give the wealthy a tax break. For the GOP, there’s no problem that can’t be solved by tax cuts for the rich.
You can read the CBO report here.
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Tags: AHCA, American Health Care Act, CBO, CBO scoring, Congress, Congressional Budget Office, GOP, health care, health insurance, House of Representatives, Republicans
NotionsCapital 
May 26, 2017 at 10:15 pm
We cannot keep spending money like there’s no tomorrow. I support the ACA but as a family doctor, still see enormous waste and costs in the system. We have to have a serious, honest, society-wide discussion of the goals of care, especially for those with progressive dementia, advanced cancers, end-stage kidney disease, heart failure, COPD, etc. We hospitalize people over and over again in the last year of life, spending tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars for diminishing returns. 5% of Medicare patients spend almost 25% of the money. In nursing homes, we have focused on “”suspended life” instead of “end of life”. It is time to radically rethink our priorities but this will take time. Gutting the system we have will only worsen the problems by sending people to the ER instead of their primary care physician. But we must keep moving forward.