The GOP’s Big Budget Bill Will Only Make the Healthcare Affordability Crisis Worse

Among the universal truths in our country today is this: Healthcare is too expensive. It’s difficult to find the right doctor for your needs. And even if you have health insurance and can get the care you need, you might come home one day to find a massive medical bill in your mailbox. You’d be hard-pressed to find a summer barbecue in America where someone isn’t sharing a story about their own struggle to afford and navigate our healthcare system.

That’s because our nation’s affordability crisis affects everyone: patients, families, workers, small businesses, large employers, and governments at every level. It’s become a drag on our economy, a strain on public budgets, and a source of instability for millions of American households. People are working harder than ever, paying more than ever, and still going without the care they need. Employers can’t keep up with premium increases. Taxpayers are paying more and getting less. And the federal government is spending more on healthcare than any other nation, with worse outcomes.

The lack of any clear agenda from lawmakers to tackle this crisis is not only a moral failure, but a political one.

The last election centered on affordability—including healthcare costs—and yet the big budget bill U.S. President Donald Trump just signed will make healthcare access and affordability worse. It adds bureaucratic barriers and raises healthcare prices, which will push or price out 17 million Americans from coverage in public and private plans. As a result of this bill, we expect premiums to spike this fall in the individual insurance market, and cost sharing to go up more sharply in the next few years.

We need leaders who say clearly: If you live in America, you should be able to see a doctor, afford your medication, and get care when you need it without going bankrupt.

This is not the kind of change people want. Poll after poll shows overwhelming public support for expanding access to care and lowering healthcare costs. Further, polling shows that most Americans believe the government has a responsibility to provide healthcare and lower its cost. President Trump and Congress have just done the opposite.

Republican leaders forced through deep cuts to people’s benefits in the name of cutting “waste, fraud, and abuse.” But these cuts are unrelated to waste, fraud, or abuse, and if they were the big budget bill would have looked dramatically different. Rather than passing policies that push people off health plans, lawmakers could have delivered for the American people by reining in the true drivers of unaffordable healthcare.

Consumer advocates and other health leaders have worked with legislators of both parties to develop proposals that could start to address these issues. Among the bipartisan solutions ready to go is stopping Medicare Advantage plans from making people appear sicker on paper so they can get more money from the federal government. Other proposals focus on policies to make sure that big corporate hospitals can’t price gouge their patients, charging hundreds and sometimes thousands more for the same procedure that can be done at the doctor’s office down the road. And proposals to guarantee that every patient knows the price and quality of health services before they get care so they can decide the most affordable place to get their MRI or a knee replacement.

Republicans have the power and responsibility to address this affordability crisis given that they control Congress and the White House. Democrats, too, face a moment of truth. With an eye toward midterm elections, the public is looking for leaders who will not just protect the status quo but challenge the entrenched interests that make healthcare unaffordable in the first place. This means taking on the rising cost of care driven by giant hospital and drug corporations, and insurance industry practices that prioritize profits at the expense of the health and financial security of the American people.

We need leaders who say clearly: If you live in America, you should be able to see a doctor, afford your medication, and get care when you need it without going bankrupt.

For the better part of the last decade, consumer advocates have been exploring solutions to bring greater affordability while also improving the quality of our healthcare. Working with other partners from across the health sector, including employers and labor, Families USA this year released our own affordability agenda, rooted in bold leadership and commonsense policy, that reflects the basic truth that affordable, high quality healthcare is foundational to our economy, our families, and our democracy.

This isn’t about being anti-profit. It’s about designing a system where the healthcare industry profits when it drives innovation, improves the quality of care and health outcomes, and leaves no one behind. These bipartisan solutions put us on that path right now.

What happens next—as we deal with the fallout from the Republican-led attack on Medicaid and our healthcare system, and how Democrats choose to respond—is a litmus test. Will we continue to let healthcare industry insiders and partisan politics dictate the future of healthcare? Or will we rise to meet the needs of the people by challenging the status quo with courage, clarity, and compassion to demand an affordable healthcare system for all of us? The moment for politics-as-usual has passed. Now is the time to stand up for the American people and the kind of future we want to build.