The GOP unveiled their new healthcare plan last week. For years, conservatives have railed against the Affordable Care Act and vowed to replace it with a better and more affordable alternative. As it turns out, there was no real plan in place and they began scrambling to put something together immediately after the election of Trump. Recently, Mr. Trump was quoted as saying “no one knew healthcare could be so complicated.” In fact, the millions of Americans who have been battling for affordable healthcare were fully aware of the complicated nature of healthcare. Despite his lack of knowledge or appreciation for the complexities of healthcare, Mr. Trump and the GOP have managed to put together an alternative plan to the ACA.
Last week, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office released their review of the GOP healthcare plan. According to this report, the new healthcare plan will increase the number of uninsured Americans by 24 million people over the next 8 years while cutting the federal budget for health care by over $330 billion. In essence, more than half the people previously ensure under the ACA will lose their coverage over the next 8 years. This reality, combined with cuts such as the total removal of all federal funds from Planned Parenthood, will leave tens of millions of Americans without access to basic healthcare.
In the past, Americans without coverage have used the emergency room as a one-stop shop for medical care. The ACA provided access to preventative care that created more than 3 million jobs in the medical field and kept people healthier and out of the ER. It is more expensive for Americans to pay to keep a lung cancer patient alive for 20 years on Medicare than it is to do screening and preventative care to catch expensive illness early. Conservatives are actively harming their own base but are concealing it as an economic benefit. What could possibly be more important than investment in the heath of Americans?
