Does the Senate tax reform bill signal the end of Obamacare?
The end of Obamacare could actually be upon us with the tax reform bill that has now been passed by Senate Republicans Saturday night.
The tax bill repeals the Affordable Care Act’s key requirement that all Americans get health insurance. Experts claim that getting rid of the mandate will cause insurance premiums to rise because young, healthy people will opt out leaving millions with no access to healthcare.
“It’s going to take a bunch of healthy people out of the insurance market,” Craig Garthwaite, director of the healthcare program at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management said.
He says that Obamacare “is going to collapse even more now.”
With no mandate, insurance premiums will rise ten percent yearly over the next decade in the individual market and 13 million people will lose their health coverage by 2027. This, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.
The move will save $300 billion over ten years in subsidies, providing the saving to fund corporate tax cuts.
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While not everyone agrees with the CBO’s 13 million figure, experts do widely agree that it will be millions of people losing their coverage.
The repeal will hit red states who voted for President Trump the hardest. Many of these places have only one health insurance plan available to them and if insurers refuse to sell in a market, and there is no mandate, those voters could be left with no healthcare options.
The states in the most jeopardy are Alaska, Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada and Wyoming.
Not a single Democrat supported the tax bill and it still has to pass the House of Representatives, currently controlled by the GOP, who are expected to sign off.
