From: januarybaybee@gmail.com   
      
   I hope the deplorables are somehow exempt from this rich-friendly Trump   
   administration.  Otherwise, they just got screwed along with those who didn't   
   vote Republican.    
                                                  =================    
   Thu November 16, 2017    
      
      
   GOP's double whammy against the middle class    
      
   (CNN) Republicans in Congress are rushing headlong toward voting for one of   
   the biggest tax cuts in American history, with bills slashing taxes for   
   corporations and the wealthiest Americans.    
      
   Along the way, however, they hit a speed bump. The tax legislation rules   
   prohibit them from increasing the deficit by more than $1.5 trillion. That   
   limit would keep them from, for example, permanently cutting corporate taxes.    
      
   So Senate Republicans found a way to add another $318 billion to their tax   
   cuts, and it is diabolical in its genius: Kill Obamacare's mandate requiring   
   people to obtain health insurance.    
      
   Such a repeal would increase the number of uninsured by 13 million and raise   
   premiums for everyone in the individual market.  And it would also allow   
   congressional Republicans to do something they could not do all summer -- deal   
   a major blow to Obamacare.   
       
      
   The individual mandate is one of the act's least popular provisions.  But it   
   is there for a reason.  Insurance markets cannot work if they only cover the   
   sick. Healthy people -- most of us, most of the time -- must also pay into   
   insurance. That's    
   important, because healthy people don't all stay healthy forever.  And when   
   they get sick or injured, and they don't have insurance, disaster looms. They   
   may get emergency care, but they may also end up deeply in debt, with the rest   
   of us paying for much    
   of their costs.    
      
   Those who lack insurance also don't get the preventive care that might have   
   caught heart problems or cancer early, when treatment is more effective and   
   much less expensive.    
      
   Massachusetts was the first state to make health reform work.  Building on a   
   proposal put forward by a conservative think tank, its Democratic Legislature   
   and Republican governor enacted an individual responsibility requirement in   
   2006.   By making    
   healthy residents responsible for buying coverage, Massachusetts created an   
   insurance risk pool that could cover people with pre-existing conditions as   
   well.  In 2010, the Affordable Care Act copied the Massachusetts experiment.    
      
   According to the Congressional Budget Office, repealing the individual mandate   
   would increase individual insurance premiums by 10%.  This would be on top of   
   dramatic premium increases insurers have just imposed because the Trump   
   administration stopped    
   reimbursing them for legally required cost-sharing reductions.    
      
   As soon as the mandate repeal goes into effect in 2019, the CBO projects, 4   
   million Americans would drop coverage, many of them because of the increased   
   premiums.  Within a decade, 13 million Americans would be uninsured, it said.    
      
   The savings from repealing the mandate would be entirely due to Americans   
   losing health insurance.  And many of them would be people with pre-existing   
   conditions who could no longer afford the higher premiums.  There is a reason   
   the nation's doctors and    
   hospitals, and patients and consumers are speaking up against repeal.    
      
   Republicans claim that most of those who pay the individual mandate penalty   
   have incomes below $50,000.  This is in part a testimony to the mandate's   
   success -- most Americans who can truly afford coverage are now insured.      
      
   But the mandate has a number of exceptions for lower-income individuals -- no   
   one whose income is too low to file taxes or who cannot find affordable   
   insurance has to pay the penalty.    
      
   Moreover, more than half of the uninsured eligible for an Affordable Care Act   
   subsidy can get coverage for free and 70% can find policies that cost less   
   than the individual responsibility tax.  Lower-income Americans can find free   
   or low-cost coverage    
   and should be responsible for being insured.    
      
   Republicans also assert that the 13 million who would become uninsured do not   
   want coverage.  Many, however, will drop coverage, not because they don't want   
   it, but rather because the repeal-caused premium increases will make coverage   
   unaffordable.    
      
   Without the mandate requirement, people who would have been found Medicaid   
   eligible by the marketplace may assume that insurance is unaffordable and not   
   apply.  Others will decide to skip the hassle of applying now, believing they   
   can always get Medicaid    
   coverage if they end up in the hospital.  But in the meantime they -- and   
   their children -- will forgo preventive and primary care.    
      
   All summer long Americans spoke up against Republican Obamacare repeal plans.    
   We must speak up again against this last-minute effort to cut the Affordable   
   Care Act's heart out.      
      
   And one more thing -- how are Republicans planning to pay for that $1.5   
   trillion deficit?  The most likely way: cut Medicare and Medicaid.  You may   
   not lose your own coverage this time, but they will be back.    
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)