CBO Issues “Score” On Trumpcare – Surely We Are a Better Country Than This

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Every time Trump and the GOP do something unthinkable and my friends from another part of the political spectrum answer with “Yes, but we had to endure Obama for 8 years” or “but at least he calls it like it is” or whatever, I lose a bit of faith in the notion that the people can be persuaded by facts, and that we as a people will ultimately make a reasoned judgement that will land us at a place that works for everyone.  Surely the monstrous things being done by this Administration merit more than, “I’m a Cubs fan and you’re a Sox fan.  You can’t always get what you want, so suck it up.”

The CBO’s score on the GOP’s Obamacare replacement bill came out yesterday and it’s worse than apparently anyone had imagined.  If this bill becomes law, 24 million people will lose health insurance.  Doesn’t that move us not just through the territory of exiling all of the people Obamacare brought under the umbrella, but into territory that’s WORSE than before we started?  And we’d have to be very naive to believe it an unintended side-effect that as part of it, the wealthiest Americans will enjoy an $883 billion tax cut.

The plan, the CBO concludes, would take more than $1 trillion away from programs targeting poor and middle-class families, to fund an $883 billion tax cut targeted at the wealthy. It is upward income redistribution of a truly massive scale. — Dylan Matthews at Vox

It remains to be seen whether enough Republicans have the courage of their convictions to follow through on this plan. Depriving millions of Americans access to medical care would impose pain more directly and widely than any legislative act in modern U.S. history. — Jonathan Chait at New York Magazine

The American Health Care Act is a misnamed, regressive tax-cut bill meant to fool you into thinking its primary purpose is improving the health care system. But the incredible cruelty of the Republican legislation didn’t become clear until Monday, when the Congressional Budget Office—led by a conservative economist whom House Speaker Paul Ryan personally selected—estimated it would undo nearly all of the coverage gains we’ve seen under the Affordable Care Act, creating human tragedy on a scale far greater than even pessimistic analysts imagined. — Brian Beutler at The New Republic

Surely we are a better people than to do a thing like this.  Surely people will now begin to see that Paul Ryan and DJT are not acting in the interest of the people they claim to serve.  Surely people will finally rouse themselves to say, “Don’t do this!”

Or will they?  And even if they do, is it already too late, now that we have given them power?

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UPDATE: I just came across another good analytical piece, from long-time health care scholar and expert Harold Pollack:

  •  Will “repeal and replace” implode?
    • …the bad news keeps coming. Table 4 of CBO’s report describes the impact of AHCA on nongroup health insurance premiums. As I read the table, a 64-year-old with a yearly income of $26,500 would see his annual net premium increase from $1,700 to a whopping $14,600—and this for a markedly less generous plan.