All week House Speaker Ryan has been promoting the Republican’s healthcare plan alternatively referred to as Ryancare or Trumpcare, depending on who someone wants to be able to blame. The problem is that there wasn’t one person who was really happy with everything in the original bill which Ryan tried to rush through The House before people at home could learn what it would mean. To sell the new law Ryan has had to make a lot of changes and promises.
Latest CBO score
The first major blow to the law came when the Congressional Budget Office told people the Trumpcare bill would save nearly $337 billion over a decade and would only cost about 27 million people their health care insurance or about $12,000 in savings for each person kicked off Obama's healthcare insurance.
But with all the changes made to Trumpcare to make it worse and placate the group of Republicans who want repeal with no replace at all, the law is moving away from the Senate's position and what could possibly get passed and sent to President trump.
The latest information today is that even the changes made to Trumpcare aren’t enough to get the votes of the most conservative members. Any further sweetener given them by moving more people off their insurance would reportedly begin costing the more liberal (humane?) Republicans’ votes for the bill.
Rushed as it is, the CBO has been able to come up with a new scoring for the latest version of Trumpcare and the bottom line is that it will cost about the same 26-27 million people their health insurance but would save less than the $337 billion saved by the original version of Trumpcare - in other words, it costs more and doesn’t save anyone’s insurance.
Other countries
The U.S. is the only developed country which doesn’t have universal healthcare funded by the federal government. How do other countries do with government insurance (such as medicare)? In Canada, they spend less than half as much per person per year on universal healthcare and Life Expectancy is about 3 years longer (not shorter) than in the U.S.
Cuba, for a third-world example, spends less than $3,000 per person per year on healthcare. For a decade Cuba had a slightly longer life expectancy (then it was spending less than $1,000 per person per year) than the U.S. and only recently slipped to 32nd place in the world’s ranking.The U.S. is now 31st with a three month longer life expectancy than Cuba for only about $9,500 more per person per year spent on
The U.S.
is now ranked 31st with a three month longer life expectancy than Cuba for only about $6,500 more per person per year spent on healthcare. That adds up to $155,000 per month gained since the $6,500 difference is every year for 70 years ($455,000) to gain the extra three months. But that's just for men, Cuban women have a slightly longer life expectancy than U.S. women.
Despite the often stated brag that the U.S. has the best healthcare system in the world, we actually rank 31st in the world for life expectancy, behind such advanced countries as Slovenia (26th), Malta (16th), and Chile (28th).
For fiscal year 2015, the U.S. spent $9,451 per person, per year on healthcare. Slovenia spent $2,614 to rank 5 places higher than the U.S.
and Cuba (ranked 32nd) spent $2,475.
First daughter Ivanka Trump has reportedly taken an interest in some aspects of healthcare in addition to the family leave program she promoted on the campaign trail.
