“Ryancare,” would cause 14 million to lose health insurance

American Health Care Act, or as Conservatives are callng it Ryancare, could be tough to sell as President Trump distances himself from the bill

The new Congressional Budget Numbers have come in and they are bad news for the American Health Care Act. The Republican replacement for Obamacare that has been pitched by Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) would lead to 14 million more people being uninsured in 2018 alone. Conservative groups are calling the replacement law Ryancare and with the new CBO numbers it will be a tough sell.

The nonpartisan scorekeeping office also forecast the GOP plan would cut the deficit by $337 billion over a decade, primarily because of the legislation’s cuts to Medicaid and private insurance subsidies. That was the only good news that came from the scoring of the bill.

Roughly 24 million more people would be uninsured over a decade if the House Republican Obamacare repeal bill is enacted, according to a much-anticipated Congressional Budget Office analysis that could threaten GOP hopes of getting the measure through the House in the coming weeks.

Premiums in the individual market for health insurance would increase before 2020 and decrease after that, according to the CBO report.

CBO finds that people’s out of pocket costs, including deductibles, “would tend to be higher” under the GOP bill than under ObamaCare, because of a loosening of requirements on insurers. High deductibles have been one of the GOP’s main lines of attack against ObamaCare.

The report also notes that financial assistance for low-income people under ObamaCare to help them pay their deductibles would be repealed and therefore would be hurt by the new law.

Right now there are not enough votes in either the House or the Senate to get the bill passed and the CBO numbers aren’t going to help. Plus Conservative news outlets like Brietbart, The Daily Caller, plus The Freedom Caucus are slamming both Speaker Ryan and the bill.

President Trump is starting to distance himself from Speaker Ryan (R-Wisc.) as support for the American Health Care Act begins to unravel. The Republican replacement bill for Obamacare is about to be scored by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Committee and the numbers are going to be bad.

A growing number of Republicans in both the House and the Senate don’t like the what many are dubbing “Ryancare.” Things are getting so bad that the Conservative website Brietbart has been panning the bill nonstop for the past four days.

The Republicans, frankly, are putting themselves in a very bad position — I tell this to Tom Price all the time — by repealing Obamacare,” Trump said during a White House listening session. “Because people aren’t gonna see the truly devastating effects of Obamacare. They’re not gonna see the devastation. In ’17 and ’18 and ’19, it’ll be gone by then. Whether we do it or not, it’ll be imploded off the map.”

Trump accused the media of undermining the GOP’s repeal effort by misrepresenting the health care law, which he slammed for its premium hikes and limited insurers.

“The press is making Obamacare look so good all of a sudden,” Trump said. “They’re showing these reports about this one gets so much and this one gets so much. First of all, it covers very few people, and it’s imploding. And ’17 will be the worst year. And I said it once; I’ll say it again: because Obama’s gone.”

Contrary to Trump’s comment that Obamacare covers few people, 20 million Americans gained coverage under it. The real problem for Trump is in swing states like Ohio, Michigan, Minnesota, Pennsylvania and West Virginia because of Medicaid expansion, many people who would be the big losers.

The CBO report found that elimination of ObamaCare’s individual mandate under the Republican bill would entice fewer healthy people to sign up for insurance, which could cause premium costs to increase 15 to 20 percent in 2018 and 2019.

But starting in 2020, the increase in average premiums would be offset by a number of provisions in the GOP plan: grants to states, a younger mix of enrollees and the elimination of some insurer requirements.