First TRUMPCARE Bill is Bad News for Workers!!!
The Republican plan to kill the Affordable Care Act is now public. They kept it secret as long as the rules allowed - 36 hours before “Committee markup” by 2 House Committees. And it’s no wonder they kept it a secret - it will leave millions without health care coverage and will cost working people more for worse care. Here’s an outline of just how bad it is:
1. No more employer mandate. Right now, employers with 50 or more full time equivalents have to provide affordable coverage to full time employees. That’s totally dead - no employer mandate at all - NO EMPLOYER HAS TO PROVIDE ANY HEALTH CARE COVERAGE. PERIOD.
2. No individual mandate. No one is required to have health care insurance under this new bill. The Republicans call it “liberty” and “freedom”. What it means is that millions of healthy people will probably go without insurance since they are healthy and imagine they will stay that way. And it means insurance companies will not get premium payments from these people, so they will raise premiums for those of us who do buy insurance - FEWER PEOPLE PAYING MEANS HIGHER PRICES FOR THOSE OF US WHO STAY INSURED.
3. HIGHER PRICES FOR LESS INSURANCE. There’s no way around this. The proposed law provides less tax credits, no subsidies, and much less demanding standards for what must be included in insurance policies. The Republicans are intent on spending less Federal tax dollars on insurance for Americans - there’s only one way to do this - make all of us pay more to fill in this gap.
4. Keep it complex and complicated, so it’s hard to know what’s going on and hard to see through it all. Don’t be confused by all the confused complexities that will be thrown about in the media - the bottom line is we are going back to pre-Affordable Care Act days - soon there will be more than 50 million Americans uninsured, and those of us who do buy insurance will pay higher premiums to cover the costs of the uninsured when they show up really ill in emergency rooms. We’ve been here before - that’s where the Republicans want to take us again.
(Will the new Trumpcare bill be adopted and become law soon? It’s hard to say - the Republicans will have to be united, something that’s hard to imagine; and the Democrats will have to be united to filibuster it - stay tuned, we are about to see the first great war in the new Congress)
WHAT SHOULD UNIONS DO? ORGANIZE! PEOPLE WILL BE LOSING INSURANCE THEY DEPEND ON TO STAY ALIVE. WE SHOULD BE OUT THERE ORGANIZING THEM - BY OFFERING THEM THE OPPORTUNITY TO HAVE GOOD UNION-BARGAINED HEALTH CARE!
Author: Bill Sokol
