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Originally Posted by over the mountain
Credskins - thanks for the link. Your understanding seems correct.
How do you feel about Trump saying:
“I shouldn’t say this,” Trump said, “but we essentially repealed Obamacare.”
“Obamacare has been repealed in this bill. We didn’t want to bring it up,” he said. “I told people specifically, ‘Be quiet with the fake-news media because I don’t want them talking too much about it.’ Because I didn’t know how people would —.” Trump didn’t finish that thought, but he said he could admit what had been done “now that it’s approved.”
Wont the increase in premiums for health insurance be much greater than the temporary 2% reduction in fed taxes that I will enjoy for 7 years?
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When he says they effectively repealed ObamaCare, what he’s specifically referencing is the removal of the individual mandate. Before this tax bill passed, everyone had to obtain health insurance or pay a tax penalty. Now with this tax bill there’s no individual mandate. You can go without health insurance and not have to pay any penalty.
So this move effectively defanged the law. The whole point of ObamaCare was to force everyone to sign up, even if they were healthy, and that would help pay for the costs of the sick who signed up quickly.
But let’s be honest, the law had no teeth in the first place. The tax penalties were never set high enough - people just said man healthcare insurance is still more expensive than paying the tax penalty, I’ll just bite the bullet and pay the tax.
Still, parts of the law live on. You can keep your kids on your plan till they’re 26. And nobody can be denied for pre existing conditions. And you can still buy insurance on the exchanges, even if they’re not nearly the bargain everyone hoped they’d be.
So they did put another nail in ObamaCare’s coffin, but it was already being lowered into the ground anyway. Premiums were rising quickly before the penalty was repealed because everyone underestimated how sick the people signing up really were. And since the healthy never signed up, the insurance companies participating either exited or raised rates to keep up with the needs of this very sick population.
It’s a lesson - taking half measures is a half assed approach. You either need to force everyone into the same risk pool (single payer) or you need to retain choice and freedom at the cost of the lives and well-being of the working class.