The Senate Trumpcare bill, like the House bill before it, is death (literally, in many cases) by a thousand cuts. If it doesn’t just strip your Medicaid, it’ll price you out of being able to get coverage or leave you with insurance that doesn’t cover what you need covered or—as Jonathan Cohn wonkily explains—leave you with higher deductibles:
Under the Affordable Care Act, the benchmark plan is a “silver” plan. Silver plans have an “actuarial value” (AV) of 70, which means they should cover roughly 70 percent of the typical person’s medical expenses. Under the Senate proposal, the benchmark plan would be a policy with an AV of 58 ― in other words, a plan that would cover just 58 percent of the typical person’s medical expenses. That’s pretty close to what, under the Affordable Care Act, qualifies as a “bronze” plan. [...]
In 2016, the median deductible in a silver plan on healthcare.gov was $3,500 a year, according to the Center on Medicare and Medicaid Services. This, roughly speaking, is the plan that Obamacare is designed to help consumers get. In 2016, the median deductible in a bronze plan on healthcare.gov was $6,300. This ― again, roughly speaking ― is the plan that Senate Republicans want to help consumers get.
The effects could be even bigger for low-income people:
Somebody making $20,000 a year could easily see deductibles increase dramatically, from $1,000 (the average deductible for lowest-income consumers in 2016, according to Aviva Aron-Dine of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities) up to that $6,300 average. And for somebody at that income level ― think a home care worker or retail clerk barely covering costs like food and rent ― even modestly higher out-of-pocket medical costs would be crippling.
Of course low-income people would be especially screwed. Of course. This is a Republican plan, after all. But there’s plenty of pain to go around, all to pay for a tax cut for the wealthy.