While Trump and other Republicans try to play the game of musical chairs with the blame surrounding the disaster that is Trumpcare, there are millions of people anxiously waiting to see what will actually happen to their health insurance. First time voter 55-year-old Martha Brawley was interviewed by the New York Times and ABC News recently.
Brawley, a resident of Monroe, North Carolina, said she fears the new Republican health insurance bill will significantly raise her premiums.
"I'm 55. This is the first time in my life I voted, and I voted for Trump hoping that he would change the insurance so I could get good health care," she told ABC News. "I might as well have not voted."
Not to be callous, but “might as well have not voted” is another bad decision on Ms. Brawley’s part. She should have voted for Hillary Clinton if not for anything else but health insurance issues. In Ms. Brawley’s defense, the Republican Party has done a great job of freaking people out about Obamacare, while somehow pretending that the Affordable Care Act was a different thing altogether.
Martha Brawley of Monroe, N.C., said she voted for President Trump in the hope he could make insurance more affordable. But on Tuesday, Ms. Brawley, 55, was feeling increasingly nervous based on what she had heard about the new plan from television news reports. She pays about $260 per month for a Blue Cross plan and receives a subsidy of $724 per month to cover the rest of her premium. Under the House plan, she would receive $3,500 a year in tax credits — $5,188 less than she gets under the Affordable Care Act.
“I’m scared, I’ll tell you that right now, to think about not having insurance at my age,” said Ms. Brawley, who underwent a liver biopsy on Monday after her doctor found that she has an autoimmune liver disease. “If I didn’t have insurance, these doctors wouldn’t see me.”
This is how insidious the Republican Party’s attacks are on the ACA—because they truly have nothing and they are simply playing for power with millions of lives. One of unpopular President Trump’s cabinet picks is Tom Price. Ms. Brawley’s plight, like so many others, is of little interest to this new Secretary of Health and Human Services.
Q: Can you guarantee that this plan will not have a markedly negative impact on the deficit or result in millions of Americans losing their health insurance?
Price: What I can see is that the goal and the desire that I know of the individuals on the Hill is to make certain that this does not increase the cost to the federal government.
The best hope now is that a person like Brawley will continue to vote—but not for the party that continues to spit in the face of its electorate.