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May 24, 2017 02:46 PM UTC

"Trumpcare 3.0" CBO Score Released: Another Bloodbath

  • 24 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

UPDATE #2: Colorado Democrats weigh in via Denver7’s Blair Miller:

Two of Colorado’s Democratic members of the House, Ed Perlmutter and Jared Polis, voted against the bill, and offered their critiques of the bill again following the CBO score.

“Congress should have found out what the bill did before they passed it,” Polis said. “The nonpartisan analysis reaffirms the danger of the Republican health care plan…It has every day consequences that could be the difference between wellness and sickness or even life and death.”

“The latest analysis from the Congressional Budget Office confirms how detrimental the Republicans’ health care bill is in terms of reducing coverage, reducing essential benefits and allowing for discrimination against those with preexisting conditions,” Perlmutter said.

Rep. Diana DeGette of Denver:

“Trumpcare is bad news for a lot of people, as the CBO has shown yet again,” DeGette said. “If this bill becomes law, it will ration care and put insurance companies back in charge. Millions of people will lose their coverage while the cost for others will go up – including those covered through employer plans. People can expect higher premiums and out-of-pocket costs for skimpy coverage that in many cases won’t include essential services such as maternity care and treatment for mental health and substance abuse. And those over age 50 will pay even more – that is, if they can afford the age tax that this plan would impose.

“President Trump promised that no American would lose health insurance under his plan and that he wouldn’t cut Medicare or Medicaid. This bad bill breaks those promises and spells disaster for countless Americans.”

“The onus is now on the Senate to prevent this damage,” DeGette said. “It was dangerously irresponsible for House Republican leaders to ram this bill through the House for a vote with no CBO score. If Republicans really want to provide better health care for Americans, they should work with Democrats on making improvements to the ACA rather than dismantling or sabotaging it.”

—–

UPDATE: Sen. Cory Gardner says don’t sweat the CBO score, that’s just those wacky House crazies:

The CBO score is regarding the House legislation, and the Senate is currently working on its own legislation to rescue Coloradans from the collapsing healthcare law. Obamacare has driven up costs and made it harder for middle class families to find access to quality and affordable care. Anyone who looks at the current healthcare system will see that Obamacare is not working. The status-quo is unacceptable, and Democrats and Republicans have a responsibility to put politics aside and act.

Okay then! Let’s see Gardner come up with a bill that 1. doesn’t kill as many people and 2. can pass the House.

—–

Trumpcare 3.0

Moments ago, the Congressional Budget Office released its score of the latest iteration of the American Health Care Act, a.k.a. “Trumpcare,” which passed the U.S. House before the score was released and is now laying heavy on the U.S. Senate.

Its effects can still be measured in, for lack of a better term, dead bodies:

CBO and the staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) have completed an estimate of the direct spending and revenue effects of H.R. 1628, the American Health Care Act of 2017, as passed by the House of Representatives. CBO and JCT estimate that enacting that version of H.R. 1628 would reduce the cumulative federal deficit over the 2017-2026 period by $119 billion. That amount is $32 billion less than the estimated net savings for the version of H.R. 1628 that was posted on the website of the House Committee on Rules on March 22, 2017, incorporating manager’s amendments 4, 5, 24, and 25. (CBO issued a cost estimate for that earlier version of the legislation on March 23, 2017.)

In comparison with the estimates for the previous version of the act, under the House-passed act, the number of people with health insurance would, by CBO and JCT’s estimates, be slightly higher and average premiums for insurance purchased individually—that is, nongroup insurance—would be lower, in part because the insurance, on average, would pay for a smaller proportion of health care costs. In addition, the agencies expect that some people would use the tax credits authorized by the act to purchase policies that would not cover major medical risks and that are not counted as insurance in this cost estimate…

CBO and JCT estimate that, in 2018, 14 million more people would be uninsured under H.R. 1628 than under current law. The increase in the number of uninsured people relative to the number projected under current law would reach 19 million in 2020 and 23 million in 2026. In 2026, an estimated 51 million people under age 65 would be uninsured, compared with 28 million who would lack insurance that year under current law.

One of the biggest concerns over the newest version of this legislation is the option by states to waive coverage requirements under the Affordable Care Act–allowing red states to dramatically change the rules for pre-existing conditions:

[T]he agencies estimate that about one-sixth of the population resides in areas in which the nongroup market would start to become unstable beginning in 2020. That instability would result from market responses to decisions by some states to waive two provisions of federal law, as would be permitted under H.R. 1628. One type of waiver would allow states to modify the requirements governing essential health benefits (EHBs), which set minimum standards for the benefits that insurance in the nongroup and small-group markets must cover. A second type of waiver would allow insurers to set premiums on the basis of an individual’s health status if the person had not demonstrated continuous coverage; that is, the waiver would eliminate the requirement for what is termed community rating for premiums charged to such people.

You’ll recall that Rep. Mike Coffman, who trended toward support for this legislation right up until the vote, in the end voted no because of a “small percentage” of patients who he said could lose coverage for pre-existing conditions. As the CBO’s estimate shows, that “small percentage” could amount to millions of Americans.

All told, the new legislation is only slightly less harmful to Americans than the last version, and the negative effects are still plenty nightmarish to justify the overwhelming public opposition all polling is showing against the bill. Rep. Coffman may have dodged culpability in this latest version of “Trumpcare,” but most of the Republican caucus in the U.S. House including the other three Colorado Republicans are now saddled with this vote.

And for Sen. Cory Gardner, who is crafting the Senate version of this bill behind closed doors, the stakes just got even higher. Coming up with a plan that isn’t political suicide, but can manage to attract support from the hard-right House Republicans who just approved this disastrous bill, seems like a more impossible task than ever now.

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24 thoughts on ““Trumpcare 3.0” CBO Score Released: Another Bloodbath”

  1. THIS IS NONSENSE. This legislation is about giving Americans back the FREEDOM to get the coverage right for them, not the government forcing them to buy coverage. Yes fewer people will be insured because they CHOOSE not to be forced into buying coverage.

    Liberals will never understand the problem of statism, so you'll never understand why giving Americans back freedom is more important than forcing them to do "the right thing." Go to Europe if you want communist health care!!!

    2. Communist health care?

      Back in 1993-94, when Newt Gingrich was peddling Obamacare (under a different name, obviously) as the GOP's market-based solution and alternative to Hillary's government take-over of health care, I don't imagine you saw it as communism then.

    3. Appreciated your trying out that disclaimer: . . . 

      "THIS IS NONSENSE" . . .

      . . . but really, poor dear, you've been around long enough now — can you possibly imagine there being anyone here who didn’t know it wouldn't be!!??!!

      (. . . Your moniker, and your wreath-o-stupidity, are sufficient warning to all of nothing but blithering nonsense to follow . . .)

    4. When will you be starting your campaign to abolish requirements for car insurance? Or the wide variety of local, state and national programs that generically are "victim assistance programs" to help crime victims? Abolish our mandatory contributions to fire departments and emergency medical systems?

       

      1. No I don't support any of that stupid stuff. If you don't drive you don't have to get car insurance. But if you breathe in America you have to buy health insurance.

  2. Senate will do nothing, House will do nothing and Obama Care will die. People will choose to drop health care because of the cost and hospitals will still treat the poor. 

  3. Maybe in the next Farm Bill we can mandate that bankers can't require farmers to purchase (subsidized) federal crop insurance as part of loan operating agreement?  Because, FreeDUMB!  Or mandate that mortgage companies can't force homeowners to insure their houses?  Again, FreeDUMB! 

    I don't like I living in eastern Yuma County and paying premiums to repair roofs or crops in western Yuma County destroyed by hail – but guess what, dumbass?  We all do it. 

    Our own health is no different. 

    We'll be truly free – free to seek employment where ones skills are most productive; free to live where we want; free from the tyranny of bankrupting my family because of disease – when we join the rest of the world and make Universal Health Care the law of the land. 

    1. yes+20

      If Mods likes "freedom" so much, surely he won't protest if his new car is T-boned by someone without insurance – after all, requiring auto insurance coverage would be "statism". Liberals just don't understand that.

      The Socialist Republic of Colorado used to be a "no-fault" insurance state until 2003. Then, the insurance industry, always looking out for consumer freedom, lobbied hard to "streamline insurance claims". Now, if you have personal injury because of that uninsured driver, you are S. O. L.

      You can always sue the uninsured driver – good luck with that! Ain't freedom wonderful?

       

        1. The preceding message was brought to you by:

          . . . The American Institute for Insurance Executives Bonuses and Profit Sharing  . . . 

          . . . and by, the generous support of the Party of Personal Responsibilty . . .

          . . ,with everyone working together we make the world an even better place for the already obscenely wealthy! Thank you, little people.

        2. Of course. But one has to pay extra for that UIM coverage. It's analagous to what a woman would have to do under Trumpcare 3.0 – in many states, she'd have to purchase an abortion/ contraception care rider, if she can even do that without violating the laws of her state.  And forget abortion…..the Republican plan would end coverage for childbirth, or make it cost $17,000 more. . How does that fit your "pro-life" world view?

          The point is that some basic coverage should be universal. There are 10 essential health benefits which the ACA covers now. In the same way, states require proof of  basic liability auto insurance coverage in order to register a vehicle.

          A mandate for this basic health coverage is exactly analagous to mandatory car insurance coverage.  It is the baseline for a healthy, secure society….like every other industrialized country has.

          1. Any state can require basic universal coverage in any policy sold in that state.  That is how it has always been.  Policies are regulated by the state insurance department and approved by them.  If that is what the people of Colorado want, so be it.  Some states may not want that.  One size does not fit all.

            2. This CO voter would support the Insurance Commission notifying insurance companies that if they wish to do business in
              CO they WILL be on the exchange and that price will be controlled.

              As long as insurance CEOs are being paid anything in excess of $100K/yr I demand they serve CO needs

               

    2. You are correct, sir! In fact, TRUE FREEDOM mandates doing away with farm subsidies entirely. As all thinking people realize, freedom's just another word for "having to spend seven or eight bucks on a single potato."

  4. Hey, Moddy, PP, AC : What about this brief analysis?

    $119 billion deficit reduction over 10 years.

    23 million uninsured by 2026, 19 million by 2020, 14 million by 2018.

    $119,000,000,000 / 23,000,000 = $5174 deficit reduction, over 10 years, in exchange for each now permanently uninsured American.

    $5174 / 10 years = $517 deficit reduction per year, in exchange for each now permanently uninsured American.

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