Republican Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma appeared on CNBC Thursday to tell everybody to stop being so dramatic about millions of Americans potentially losing their health insurance if President Donald Trump’s “One Big, Beautiful Bill Act” passes into law.
“People are screaming and saying, ‘Hey it’s kicking people off Medicaid.’ It's not kicking people off Medicaid. It's transitioning from Medicaid to employer-provided health care. So, yes, we've got 10 million people that are not going to be on Medicaid, but they then are going to be on employer-provided health care,” he said.
Lankford’s vision of universal “employer-provided” health care is a fantasy. The bill’s harsher work requirements are estimated to result in more than 8 million people losing Medicaid—many of whom are low-income, middle-aged women who care for disabled and senior family members.
As for private-sector insurance, the odds are not in your favor unless you can work full time for a company that offers good benefits. But even then, you’ll need to make it into the top 5% of earners to avoid health insurance premiums eating a huge chunk of your wages. And if you work for a small business, your chance of having access to full benefits is a coin toss.
A cartoon by Clay Bennett.
Maybe Trump’s proposed “no tax on tips” policy will help make a dent in your new insurance premiums? But unfortunately, the GOP remains steadfast in its lack of policy on slowing down rising health insurance costs.
And that’s assuming you can get a job in Trump’s new billionaires-first economy. Payroll company ADP recently reported that the private sector added only 37,000 new jobs in May—about one-third of what economists were expecting—fueling fears that Trump’s idiotic tariffs are beginning to show their deleterious effect on the U.S. economy.
Trump’s budget bill will strip millions of their health insurance, and many of those affected will be in red states. But we still have future elections to hopefully right the Republican Party’s wrongs.
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