Campaign Action
There's no way legislation that dismantles so much of the nation's healthcare system as Trumpcare wouldn't reverberate through the whole economy and have consequences like ending insurance for people who aren't even relying on the Affordable Care Act for their coverage. Healthcare analysts have been warning for weeks that the affects of Trumpcare will bleed into the entire insurance marketplace, including group plans provided through employers.
The Center for American Progress has new analysis to determine just how many people with employer-paid coverage would be at risk of losing coverage, and "estimate that the Senate bill would erode or eliminate financial protections for about 27 million workers and their dependents."
Importantly, under current regulations a large employer can choose to apply any state’s standard for essential health benefits for purposes of determining the scope of the ACA’s ban. Under the ACA, an employer’s choice of state standards is trivial because federal regulations require that all states’ essential health benefits include 10 core services. But under the Senate repeal bill, a large employer could choose the waiver state that provided it with the most flexibility on benefits. That choice would affect all the firm’s employees, regardless of whether they lived in waiver states, and they could face annual and lifetime limits on services that had previously been classified as essential. […]
Suppose that Utah obtains a waiver that eliminates all essential health benefits. Walmart, which is headquartered in Arkansas but has operations in all 50 states, could choose to apply Utah’s standard—or lack thereof—to all of its plans for all of its employees. In this indirect way, Walmart could impose annual and lifetime limits on any benefit for all of its employees nationwide. […]
The Republican bill’s waivers of essential health benefits threaten coverage not just for the individual market but also for the roughly 134 million Americans covered through large employers. Unlimited coverage for basic services like mental health, prescription drugs, and maternity coverage could disappear. Without it, cancer patients would not be able to access life-saving drugs, families would not be able to help a loved one obtain substance-abuse treatment, and new mothers would take home both babies and medical debt.
It's critical to remember that Obamacare didn't just provide insurance to millions of people who hadn't had it before. It provided more financial and health security to everyone who already had insurance. Anyone who has fought cancer or had a baby or lives with something like diabetes knows that very well, unless they're a Republican in Congress.
