GoldenRod
10 years on LIF!
Member since 11/06 26792 total posts
Name:
Shawn
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8 Big Changes Under Tom Price’s Obamacare Replacement Plan
http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/healthcare/8-big-changes-under-tom-price%C3%A2%E2%82%AC-tm-s-obamacare-replacement-plan/ar-AAkXhse
Rep. Tom Price (R-GA), the fierce opponent of the Affordable Care Act who was just tapped by President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday to head the Department of Health and Human Services
Here are eight big changes in U.S. health care that may be coming if Price’s legislation Empower Patients First Act prevails:
-- Obamacare would be scrapped, including the government-run insurance markets in every state, the mandates on individuals and businesses and federal tax credits to subsidize the insurance of lower income Americans. Price’s plan instead would offer fixed tax credits – pegged to a person’s age rather than their income -- so that they can buy their insurance policies in the private market.
-- Those tax credits would be fairly modest, ranging from $1,200 a year for people 18 to 35 years of age to $3,000 for those 51 and older. In many regions of the country, that would hardly begin to cover the premiums and out-of-pocket costs for a relatively comprehensive health insurance plan.
-- Just as is the case under Obamacare, people with pre-existing medical conditions or chronic illnesses couldn’t be denied coverage under Price’s approach -- provided they had continuous insurance for 18 months before choosing a new policy. That’s a big caveat designed to discourage people from obtaining coverage during an illness and then dropping the policy after recovering. If someone allows their policy to lapse, the next time they return to the market they could be charged up to 150 percent of the standard premiums for the next two years.
-- This concept of requiring people to maintain “continuous coverage,” is a popular one among Republican policymakers, and is also included in House Speaker Paul Ryan’s “Better Way” approach.
-- Price would seek expanded use of health savings accounts to allow people to save income before taxes to pay for future health care needs. Health savings accounts already are a common feature in many workplaces. One twist under Price’s approach is that people who are currently covered by Medicare, the Veterans Affairs Department or some other government health program could contribute to health savings accounts to help cover their premiums and copayments.
-- As a way of addressing the insurance industry’s challenge in covering older and sicker Americans, Price would provide grants to states to insure the “high risk” population. The risk pools would be the equivalent of a safety net for insurers, to offset part of their costs when hit with enrollees’ catastrophic health care costs. But Price appears to be seriously low-balling the scope of the problem by proposing to invest a mere $3 billion into state risk pools over a three-year period. Ryan’s “Better Way” plan, for instance, would provide $25 billion over the coming decade, and even that might prove to be woefully inadequate.
-- Price would likely roil businesses by imposing a cap on the amount of money that companies could deduct from their taxes to defray the cost of providing health insurance to their workers. This exclusion is one of the largest in the federal tax code and costs the government an estimated $260 billion a year in foregone revenue. Price’s approach would limit the employer tax exclusion for providing health insurance to $8,000 a year for individual policies and $20,000 for families.
-- In one of the biggest blows to poor and low-income Americans, Price would repeal the expanded Medicaid coverage in 32 states and the District of Columbia for able-bodied single people and leave those current beneficiaries to fend for themselves on the open market, using other tax credits and benefits.
-- Price’s approach matches that of GOP President-elect Donald Trump in one notable way – by allowing health insurers licensed to sell policies in one state to offer them to residents of other states. This approach would allow consumers to shop around for health insurance across state lines just as they might for any other insurance product.
-- Finally, the Price proposals would foster an insurance market very welcoming to young, healthy and financially self-sufficient people but hostile to sicker and older people. For one thing, it would eliminate Obamacare-style mandates for insurers to include a standard package of benefits such as maternity services and pediatric care and allow them to offer cheaper, less comprehensive policies to younger people who are looking for a bargain.
At the same time, insurers could jack up the premiums and copayments on their oldest enrollees by as much as the market would bear. The Affordable Care Act currently limits insurers from charging their oldest enrollee three times as much as their youngest clients, but that would no longer be the case under Price’s approach.
As with any bill or proposal, things will change...
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Xelindrya
Mommy's little YouTube Star!
Member since 8/05 14470 total posts
Name:
Veronica
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8 Big Changes Under Tom Price’s Obamacare Replacement Plan
circumstantial .............
Starts off with 'may be'
None of this is approved. This is all hypothetical
Ugh.. Fuel for more fire. And I personally can't stand parts of ACA but to just say here's what he's gonna do, is just asking for drama. Even Obama didn't get what he wanted.
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JDandMe
LIF Adult
Member since 9/10 996 total posts
Name:
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Re: 8 Big Changes Under Tom Price’s Obamacare Replacement Plan
Posted by Xelindrya
circumstantial .............
Starts off with 'may be'
None of this is approved. This is all hypothetical
Ugh.. Fuel for more fire. And I personally can't stand parts of ACA but to just say here's what he's gonna do, is just asking for drama. Even Obama didn't get what he wanted.
Exactly- title of this post is misleading the 8 changes are hypothetical.
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GoldenRod
10 years on LIF!
Member since 11/06 26792 total posts
Name:
Shawn
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Re: 8 Big Changes Under Tom Price’s Obamacare Replacement Plan
Posted by JDandMe
Posted by Xelindrya
circumstantial .............
Starts off with 'may be'
None of this is approved. This is all hypothetical
Ugh.. Fuel for more fire. And I personally can't stand parts of ACA but to just say here's what he's gonna do, is just asking for drama. Even Obama didn't get what he wanted.
Exactly- title of this post is misleading the 8 changes are hypothetical.
It's not misleading. This is what's in his plan. Plans are always a project in the works. However, if people see what the plan is, they can contact their representatives to try and have things changed (or kept) in the plan before it is enacted. Once it's no longer hypothetical, and in place, it can't be changed.
It's always good to have information beforehand, even it is just a plan. Since it's the only written plan for replacing ACA, I think it's a big indicator in what direction things are heading, even if they aren't exact.
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