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There was very little in the Congressional Budget Office score of the Senate's version of Trumpcare that they could point to as good news. But there was one little sliver, that premiums for people buying their own insurance would be about 20 percent lower than under current law, the Affordable Care Act. There are just a few issues with that, though.
[A]nalysts at the nonprofit Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation have crunched the numbers and come to a very different perspective on what the Senate Republican bill would do.
People who now buy insurance on healthcare.gov or a state exchange like Covered California would have to pay 74 percent more on average to get equivalent coverage, Kaiser’s analysts found. […]
Simply put, if Republicans get their way, then insurance policies will tend to cover less care, and fewer people with serious medical problems will be carrying insurance. […]
But when Kaiser’s analysts broke up the population into 14 groups, representing different incomes and ages, they found that only one group (younger than 18 with an income more than twice the poverty level) could actually get the same level of benefits for less money ― and even then, it was an average savings of just 4 percent, with monthly net premiums for this group dropping from $176 to $170.
This is sort of a case you get what you pay for, or what insurance companies decide you can have. And full coverage pretty much isn't it. The bill would slam older, lower-income people the hardest. According to KFF's analysis, someone nearing retirement and at the edge of the poverty line would pay $272 a month for coverage. Under Obamacare, they're paying $69 under the ACA.
Loren Adler from the Brookings Institution has a good way of debunking the Republicans' claim that the CBO says it brings premiums down. It's like airline tickets, he tweets: "This is like saying that tickets for a plane without first class seats cost less, on avg, even though the comparable coach seats cost more." If someone on the individual market wants coverage that compares to what they have under Obamacare, they're going to have to spend a lot more to get it.
We delayed Trumpcare—for now. But the GOP leadership is hell-bent on denying health insurance, and is working hard to coerce Republican senators. We need three Republicans to stand firm. Call your senator at (202) 224-3121 and tell them “NO DEAL.” Then, tell us how it went.