Over 200 demonstrators participated in a rally against massive cuts to the Affordable Care Act and Medicaid in Philadelphia, June 22, 2017. (Photo: Joe Piette / Flickr)
Just weeks after lambasting the Affordable Care Act repeal and replacement efforts as “terrible” and “mean,” President Trump is now calling for something even meaner: repealing the ACA entirely and replacing it at a later date.
Repealing the ACA without replacing it would leave 32 million more uninsured by 2026.
Though delayed, the Better Care Reconciliation Act, the Senate version of the repeal, survives. It empowers states to apply for waivers to opt out of offering essential health benefits, defunds abortion providers like Planned Parenthood for one year, and offers smaller subsidies. Perhaps most devastatingly, the plan discontinues the Medicaid expansion and caps the Medicaid funding distributed to states to deprive the program of nearly $800 billion over the next decade.
Repealing and replacing the ACA with the Better Care Reconciliation Act would lead to an estimated 22 million more uninsured Americans by 2026, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
Withdrawing funding from abortion providers almost ensures that low-income Medicaid recipients will receive less medical care and be at heightened risk for unplanned pregnancies. Although the Senate bill offers more generous subsidies to poor Americans than those included by the House, the subsidies are still lower than those provided by the Affordable Care Act and are based on a less generous “benchmark plan” than that established by the ACA. As a result, Americans will pay more for less coverage.
Without the funding necessary to maintain the expansion, states will have no incentive to maintain the enhanced levels of participation and certainly no incentive to further expand their eligibility settings for Medicaid candidates. Additionally, the capped Medicaid funding per person would only be permitted to grow along with the medical component of…