A number of provisions in TrumpCare will surprise those many middle class and low-wage Trump supporters in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, and other red states which put President Trump in office. Much of the analysis in this is from John McDonough, the Harvard professor who helped draft the Massachusetts medical bill which was so popular that it helped pass ObamaCare.
Tax savings
As promised by the Republicans in general and President Trump in particular, repealing ObamaCare will save taxpayers a lot of money. There are massive tax cuts included in the new TrumpCare insurance bill, but they all go to those who earn more than $200,000 per year with no income tax savings for those 160 million families who earn less than $200,000 per year.
One significant way healthcare was paid for in ObamaCare was by increasing the taxes on both earned and unearned income for those with incomes over $200,000.
Included in those millions of rich families are the 400 wealthiest families in the United States who will on average save $7 million annually in lower taxes that had helped pay for the low-wage earners ObamaCare.
A very strange business tax cut is the one ObamaCare imposed on indoor tanning salons. That tax is cut in the TrumpCare bill. Tanning salons contribute to the skin damage that leads to skin cancer.
Nearly 11 million low-wage people were added to Medicaid in the 31 states which expanded coverage under ObamaCare. Republicans now hold the state house in many of those states.
Those GOP governors are very upset by the proposed TrumpCare bill that eliminates the Federal support for those people who were added based on the promises of ObamaCare.
Age rating and tax credits for the poor.
Part of the Affordable Care Act or Aca was new tax credits/subsidies for those who made more than the Medicaid income limit but who still didn't earn enough that they could afford decent health insurance.
The subsidies under the ACA begin at the poverty level and decrease as income levels increase until at four times the poverty level the subsidy drops to zero.
The new healthcare act also changes age-related subsidies. Under the ACA older people got higher subsidies because their insurance rates are higher than for healthy young people.
Under the new plan, a low-wage 20-year-old will get a $2,000 tax credit while those in their 60s will get a $4,000 tax credit. But the insurance for a 60-year-old is much more than $2,000 higher than that of a 20-year-old.
Under the ACA a 60-year-old in a poor region of Pennsylvania got an $8,000 to $10,000 tax credit because the benefit was both age- and income-based. Under the proposed Republican bill the income consideration is dropped and everyone just gets the $4,000 tax credit.
Palin's input - she agrees it is a terrible plan.
Another way the ACA was paid for.
About 50% of the money that paid for the ACA came in lower Medicare and Medicaid payments to payments to hospitals, home health care, and other services including companies issuing Medicare advantage insurance programs.
In order to get more people insured under the ACA a hospital association’s members gave up $350 billion in lower Medicare payments over a decade; now they want their money back because TrumpCare is repealing all the provisions that added so many millions to the insurance rolls.
The mandate was another way ObamaCare was paid for; in TrumpCare the mandate is removed but replaced with a much higher penalty going to the insurance companies.
The old fee or fine if you could afford but didn’t buy insurance was $695. But TrumpCare says if you failed to have insurance for 64 or more days the previous year you pay a premium of 30% more on your new premium when you try to buy insurance but not in tax.
If you buy a $7,500 healthcare policy you pay an extra $2,200 that goes to the insurance company instead of the government, and there is no hardship exemption. If you lost your job and your insurance for more than 63 days it will cost you 30% more to re-insure.
