House Republicans have put out a plan to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare). If it passes, it would fundamentally change the health insurance marketplace.
Health insurance is always complicated, so we at Insulin Nation have tried to boil it down to 12 takeaways, with GIFS (because we like GIFS):
1. The plan does away with the penalty for those who decide not to buy health insurance.
2. But….insurers can charge you 30 percent more for premiums for a year if you let your insurance lapse more than 63 days.
3. Insurers still will be required to cover preexisting conditions like diabetes.
4. However, it removes limits on what plans insurers can offer, so people with diabetes might have to watch out for plans pushing higher deductibles or co-pays.
5. Those under 26 can stay on the insurance of their parents.
6. The plan phases out subsidies based on income and geographic affordability of insurance in favor of tax credits based on age. Older Americans get a bigger tax credit.
7. But it allows insurers to charge older Americans up to three to five times more for coverage than they would charge people who are younger.
8. New Medicaid expansion money would end in 2020.
9. And the federal government will switch from open-ended reimbursement to pay for its share of a state’s Medicaid program to per capita reimbursement. This makes health advocates worry that there will be less money for Medicaid to cover new treatments, like the bionic pancreas.
10. If you’re well off, prepare to be more so. The plan would eliminate most taxes on the wealthy that were put in place under the Affordable Care Act. That would result in tens of thousands of dollars in tax savings for nearly everyone in the top 1%, according to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center.
11. So far, this plan has garnered a lot of criticism, including comments from fiscal conservatives (who don’t like the subsidies), liberals (who don’t like the decreased subsidies), and major medical groups (who say it will leave many without coverage), including the American Diabetes Association.
12. So it remains to be seen if House Majority Leader Paul Ryan and President Donald Trump, who back the plan, will have the votes needed for it to pass.
3/10/2017 – This article has been corrected to change the word “increased” to “decreased” in point 11. Also, the name of the American Diabetes Association was added.
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