It returns individual insurance markets to the bad old days when insurers competed on insuring the healthy and finding ways to avoid covering the sick.
There are a host of changes in the new BCRA, most of which leave the fundamental thrust of the legislation intact. But there’s one addition that genuinely changes everything.
Included in the new bill is a version of Ted Cruz’s amendment allowing insurers to offer plans that don’t comply with Obamacare’s insurance regulations so long as they also offer plans that do comply with Obamacare’s insurance regulations. [snip]
What will happen here is clear: The plans that have to offer decent coverage to anyone who wants it, no matter their health care history, will become a magnet for the old and the sick or the soon-to-be-sick, as they can’t afford, or perhaps can’t even buy, the other plans. That will drive premiums in those plans up, pulling younger, healthier people into the non-compliant plans. [snip]
This is a very bad idea for anyone who is sick, has been sick, or is likely to get sick. It attacks the core changes Obamacare made to build insurance markets that serve the sick, the well, and, crucially, everyone in between.That a large plurality of the Republican Senate will vote for this homicidal bill is proof enough of the void at the center of right- wing politics. Finding three Republican Senators -- three! -- to muster the "moral courage" to vote against their steaming pile of a party seems to be what passes for political drama in Washington these days. There's lots of "concern" affecting the "consciences" of Republican Senators these days -- but those concerns are about their political future rather than the well- being of the American people.
Here's the other weasel game that's being played by the villainous Sen. Mitch "Missy" McConnell to provide cover for his cowardly "moderates:" don't worry about voting for those Medicare cuts; they won't happen because cooler heads will prevail down the road! As the Washington Post notes:
... Moderate [ed. note: Ha!] senators who earlier claimed to have concerns about cutting off poor people have no reasonable justification for supporting this bill. If they vote for it in anticipation that its Medicaid cuts would phase in as planned, they would support a massive blow to low-income people in their states. If they vote for the bill with the calculation that future Congresses would cancel its Medicaid cuts, then their vote would likely equate to support for expanding the national debt, because the Medicaid savings are the major source of financing for the bill’s many tax cuts.Here and here is what may be going on with some of those so- called "moderates." They're weasels to the core. Be afraid.
We keep saying it over and over: TrumpCare is not dead until it's dead (and even then, Republicans will try to revisit some form of it until they're no longer in the majority). As Joy Reid noted about getting these weasels to stand up to Trump over the Russia scandal, the only long- term solution is to vote in a Democratic Congress. But in the short run, please keep the pressure on these Republican Senators (especially if you live in West Virginia, Nevada, Alaska, Arizona, Tennessee or any of the states shown in the TrumpCare tool kit -- and please use it!).
UPDATE: It's also wildly unpopular (still) and is even getting slammed by a key Republican governor. Sad!
