NO to Republicans' "Restoring Americans’ Healthcare Freedom Reconciliation Act of 2015."
If you're waiting for a Republican rescue to Obamacare, don't hold your breath. Their proposed "Healthcare Freedom," is the same old thing that got Obamacare passed in the first place--A desire to protect the rich (where the gap between the rich versus the rest of us has WIDENED under Obama*) and a desire to avoid self governance (where the gap between government employee benefits and the rest of us has also WIDENED under Obama**).
Any changes that don't directly address these widening gaps between rich and not rich and government employee versus private sector employee are not needed solutions. Further, proposals that will WIDEN those gaps are bad for consumers.
In addition to supporting the rich over the middle class, significantly, the Republican proposal fails to address the widening gap that favors government employees over private sector employees, that in Obamacare gave us lawmakers who use the loophole of the-government-is-our-employer-therefore-we-get-the-majority-of-our-premiums-paid-for-with-your-tax-dollars.
Find the proposal: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/114/hr3762/text.
28 PROPOSED Changes, My TAKE--NEUTRAL (6), AGAINST (17), FOR (5).
1-NEUTRAL
Section 101, ENDS funding for Prevention and Public Health Fund as per https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/300u-11, is federal government giving money to federal government (in this case Health and Human Services to "…provide for expanded and sustained national investment in prevention and public health programs to improve health and help restrain the rate of growth in private and public sector health care costs.")
Section 103 ends funding to territories in accordance with other provisions beginning in 2018.
Section 105: GIVES grant money to states to pursue substance abuse and urgent mental health needs.
Section 201 suspends premium assistance and cost-sharing increases until 2018 when they'd be gone.
Section 203 would repeal small business tax credit beginning in 2018.
Section 219: Tanning tax repeal.
2- AGAINST
Section 102 gives an END date for providing funding by federal government to federal government (administered through Secretary of Department of Health and Human Services: "…purpose of this section to establish a Community Health Center Fund," https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/254b-2.
This money was never intended to go on and on (as evident in cite above). However, cutting into community dollars while failing to RESTORE the Sustainable Growth Rate that limits money being paid by the government to Medicare physicians (who lobbied and successfully got rid of this provision on what they charge), is not pro-consumer.
Section 104 termination of risk reinsurance, risk adjustment and risk corridors is no good because risk corridor and risk reinsurance payments to insurers on Obamacare exchanges TERMINATE anyway (http://conoutofconsumer.blogspot.com/search?q=risk+corridors) under law and risk adjustment is payment from one insurance company to another to cover increased expenses of insurance companies with insureds who utilize their insurance more.
Section 202 which repeals premium tax credit and cost sharing under Obamacare is no good until again, the federal employees limit their own use of our tax dollars for their health insurance.
Section 205 getting rid of the employer mandate is no good because it's one of the few pro-consumer Obamacare provisions, "restoring" an old-time idea that employers have an interest in providing "benefits" to American workers.
Section 206 defunds Planned Parenthood and is no good because fewer than half of the abortion-getting population use Planned Parenthood, so it's rich versus poor.
Section 207- stops payments for Medicaid expansion beginning in 2018 which is no good because there are already limits on what the government can spend on Medicaid before more draconian measures come into play, and Medicaid expansion (virtually free health insurance and virtually free healthcare) is arguably the only part of the ACA that benefited consumers. Again, without cannibalizing their own freebies in terms of us paying for their healthcare, federal employees should not be doing this.
Section 210 repeals oversight provisions that limit spending from accounts like health savings accounts to prescribed medications preventing the use of these accounts as tax-free savings accounts. Since back-door hiding money is not good for average consumers because typically the rich are "hiding" money, obviously reducing the tax on money when it is misspent
Section 211 is also not good and removing limits on how much money can be placed in these tax-free accounts Section 212 is also no good.
Further, 210, 211 and 212 changes support HSA-style accounts, the healthy-wealthy accounts also called high deductible accounts that leave consumers under-insured if they actually need their health insurance.
Reducing taxes on fees on corporations without companion provisions that such savings MUST be passed directly onto consumers merely allows corporations to get richer therefore consumers cannot support so we're against
Section 213 reduction in fees on pharmaceutical companies,
Section 214 removal of tax on medical devices, and Section 215 removal of tax on health insurance providers.
Section 218 which removes the additional 0.9 percent Medicare tax on people earning over $250,000 a year and Section 220, which provides more tax relief (net investment tax) for payments to officers, directors or employees in excess of $500,000,
Section 221 which would ALLOW insurers to deduct payments to employees who earn more than $500,000 and
Section 222 addressing sham transactions used to avoid taxes DO NOT reflect a real need in lieu of the widening gap under Obama favoring the rich.
Section 223 is a provision designed to mimic Democrats and "sell" the Republican proposal by leaving current retirees alone and screwing the upcoming generations on Medicare by promising to fund Medicare through 2025. No consumer who is not already collecting Medicare (the targeted group) can support this because it's a sham.
FOR:
Section 204 which gets rid of the individual mandate immediately is good because that mandate forces consumers to purchase a product that prevents us from using our purchase choices to influence the market to produce a health insurance product that we want.
Section 208 that repeals DSH allotment reductions is good because the disproportionate share hospitals payments were made to hospitals treating the uninsured and Obamacare reduced that money because supposedly "everyone" would be covered. That hasn't happened so the justification for the reduction was false and therefore simply creates an opportunity for hospitals to discriminate against the uninsured.
Section 209 repealing the Cadillac tax is good because penalizing the private sector for overly generous insurance plans should only come after a similar limitation for public. The tax has already been postponed and this section merely gets rid of it.
Section 216 repeals the elimination of deduction for expenses allocable to Medicare Part D Subsidy under Obamacare which is GOOD because employers shouldn't be penalized for giving retirees good benefits.
Section 217 Repeal of Chronic Care Tax is also good because Obamacare raised how much we had to spend to be able to take a medical expenses deduction from 7.5 percent to 10 percent. This was a backdoor increase in our taxes just like the payroll tax increase.
*Search MIDDLE CLASS doing worse to find among others, TIME, http://time.com/3814048/income-inequality-middle-class/, BLOOMBERGVIEW, http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-04-10/the-u-s-middle-class-poorer-than-you-think, CBS NEWS, http://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-middle-class-is-worse-off-than-we-thought/.
**The government says: “The government provides its employees with a first-class benefits package. In fact, studies conducted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics reveal that the gap concerning benefits between the private and public sectors has been growing-in favor of the public sector,” http://gogovernment.org/government_101/benefits.php. (http://conoutofconsumer.blogspot.com/search?q=gap)
