TrumpCare 2.0: Millions Lose Coverage, Top 1% Receives Tax Breaks
TrumpCare 2.0 passed through the House this week, 217-213, which means over 24 million Americans will lose insurance. The ACA replacement will allow insurance companies to create high-risk pools meaning those with preexisting conditions would have to pay considerably more or be left uninsured. TrumpCare 2.0 is just Trump’s attempt to accomplish something in the first 100 days of his presidency, no matter how bad it is for the American people.
And though Trump sounded off about “Obamacare” in virtually every campaign speech he made, reckoning it to be a “disaster,” it wasn’t a disaster, and the alternative that he and Republicans came up with had too many gaps.
But now tea party Republicans have apparently won the fight, at least in the House. The only hope Americans have is that enough Republican senators will walk away from the proposal. The GOP would allow insurance companies to bail out of the requirement to cover those with pre-existing conditions in favor of “high risk” pools to cover those with illnesses who couldn’t get conventional insurance under the old profit-driven health care system. The high risk pools would likely be tremendously expensive and leave many people uncovered.
Why Speaker Ryan can’t understand that it’s too late to simply do away with Obamacare, and why he didn’t learn a lesson from the failed attempt to replace it is mysterious. His predecessor, John Boehner, learned as Speaker that the tea party element, now calling itself the “Freedom Caucus” (led by North Carolina Rep. Mark Meadows) does not believe in compromise, and Boehner angered some of the most conservative Republicans by maneuvering around them on occasion.
Trump flatly promised those with pre-existing conditions would be protected. This proposal doesn’t do that. But Trump so craves to have an “accomplishment” in his first three months that it’s doubtful he’ll be bothered by being caught in another lie. The tea party House members ignore the ACA’s popularity, But their day of reckoning will come, in the 2018 elections. GOP senators may be more savvy about that than their House colleagues. The American people must hope so.
