HEALTH COACH - The most important things they do not want you to know about the bill on health care

HEALTH COACH -

 
 
  
 The most important things they do not want you to know about the bill on health care  Greg Walden, R-Ore.       (Speaking), Billy Long, R-Mo., Left, and Fred Upton, R-Mich., Well, let's hope their last-minute amendment will divert you from the horror discussed below. (AP Photo / Susan Walsh)  
 
 
 Hello! Remember that the health care bill was so terrible that even those who campaigned against the repeal of the ACA could not pass it on? He is back, and is due for a vote today. 
 
 
 
 Remember, the last failed because he presented to the Republicans of the House a  impossible choice: vote no and disappoint their party or vote Yes and Make sure the death and ill health of thousands of people in their district. (This is not an exaggeration, I will give some figures below.) 
 
 Yesterday evening, legislators planted on some lipstick changes on the bill: They hope will make it look prettier and deviated Some criticism, but it does nothing to change the fact that it is a terrible bill and they all know it. This interview with Pennsylvania Republican Mike Kelly gives an idea: he admits that this breaks his promises to voters, but he votes for the name of the Republican team job. The Senate will magically repair all its problems, he suggests. 
 
 Whatever it is. Here are the most important parts of the bill that its promoters hope you do not notice: 
 
 
  You do not need to be on "Obamacare" for See your insurance become useless.  Given that states may waive the requirements of essential benefits, insurers in these states may offer   household garbage insurance plans that look great at first , Cheap premiums! But, if you are hit by a bus, you could pay for your own surgery, your hospitalization or whatever they do not cover. Even if you have insurance through your work, your employer might end up choosing one of these plans to save money. Reminder: even young men in good health, lucky and privileged (the group most in favor of cheap insurance) can be hit by buses. 
 
  Without any essential benefits, there is no limit as to your pocket payment . Even if you have a correct insurance policy, if hospitalization is not considered essential, the law does not put a ceiling on the amount you might be obligated to pay. 
 
  Premiums could increase by $ 4,000 for people with asthma, $ 140,000 for people with metastatic cancer . These are  premiums  per year, for people who buy their own insurance that had a coverage gap. It will be a lot of people, because of the other provisions of this bill. The House holds this vote without a CBO score, so there is no official number on the amount of premiums. In its place, we have those estimates from the Progressive Center for US Progress, based on government data, which show how much more costly these plans will cost insurers. And since healthy people will not have to buy insurance, insurers have all the incentives to keep their cheap to cheap and expensive. 
 
  The safety net for uninsured people will not be able to do its job . Legislators talk about "high-risk pools" where the government pays care to people who can not afford insurance. But the high - risk pools are  really, really expensive  and the law does not allocate enough money. The bill is $ 19 billion. High-risk pools have been a thing in the past, and they have not worked well either. 
 
  The real objective of the bill is to "save" 880 billion dollars to be used in tax cuts.  Last-minute additions of $ 15 billion to help cut premiums and $ 8 billion for pre-existing conditions do not change the big picture. The bill receives $ 880 billion primarily from the evisceration of Medicaid, the program that provides insurance for the poor, disabled or requiring long-term care. Almost  half of all births  in this country are paid for by Medicaid. Money saved partly to repeal a 3.8% tax and a 0.9% tax currently paid by the rich; The rest allows a future "tax reform" project to deliver even larger reductions that will likely benefit the rich much more than the poor. 
 
  Yes, people will die . The latter tends to laugh; Can people really  die  from poor access to health care in our wonderful country? Here is a small data point to prove it. When Obamacare allowed states to expand Medicaid to cover more people, states that expanded coverage saved thousands of lives. There were 2,840 deaths per year by state in those who refused the expansion, compared to those who implemented it. In the broader picture, the best estimates suggest that if 20 million people lose health insurance (an underestimate of this bill), 24,000 people will die unnecessarily. 
 
 
 If you want to examine in depth everything in the invoice, the best result is that of Vox. The bill, without a CBO score and end - of - night amendments that the representatives did not necessarily have the opportunity to read, should be voted today at 14 o'clock. [ Updated: It's past. ] Do they call our bluff again? Hard to say, but call your representative anyway.