The Three Big Reasons Republicans Can't Replace Obamacare
Republicans are preparing to repeal the Affordable Care Act, and have promised to replace it with something that doesn't leave more than 20 million Americans stranded without health insurance.
Yet they haven't come up with a replacement. And they won't, for three reasons.
First, Republicans say they want the replacement to be "market-based." But Obamacare is already market based - relying on private, for profit health insurers.
Republicans are preparing to repeal the Affordable Care Act, and have promised to replace it with something that doesn't leave more than 20 million Americans stranded without health insurance.
Yet they haven't come up with a replacement. And they won't, for three reasons.
First, Republicans say they want the replacement to be "market-based." But Obamacare is already market based - relying on private, for profit health insurers.
That's already a problem. The biggest health insurers - Anthem, Aetna, Humana, Cigna, and United Health - are so big they can get the deals they want from the government by threatening to drop out of any insurance system Republicans come up with. Several have already dropped out of Obamacare.
Even now they're trying to merge into far bigger behemoths that will be able to extort even better terms from the Republicans.
Second, every part of Obamacare depends on every other part. Trump says he'd like to continue to bar insurers from denying coverage to individuals with preexisting conditions.
But this popular provision depends on healthy people being required to pay into the insurance pool, a mandate that Republicans vow to eliminate.
The GOP also wants to keep overall costs down, but they haven't indicated how. More than 80 percent of Americans who buy health insurance through Obamacare receive federal subsidies. Yet Republicans have no plan for raising the necessary sums.
Which gets us to the third big reason Republicans can't come up with a replacement. Revoking the tax increases in Obamacare - a key part of the repeal - would make it impossible to finance these subsidies.
The two biggest of these taxes - a 3.8-percentage-point surtax on dividends, interest and other unearned income; and a 0.9-percentage-point increase in the payroll tax that helps fund Medicare - are also the most progressive. They apply only to people earning more than $200,000 per year.
Immediately repealing these taxes, as the GOP says it intends to do, will put an average of $33,000 in the hands of the richest 1 percent this year alone, and a whopping $197,000 into the hands of the top 0.1 percent, according to the Tax Policy Center.
It would also increase the taxes of families earning between $10,000 and $75,000 - including just about all of Trump's working class voters.
Worse yet, eliminating the payroll tax increase immediately pushes Medicare's hospital fund back toward the insolvency that was looming before Obamacare became law.
Ultimately, the only practical answer to these three dilemmas is Medicare for all - a single payer system. But Republicans would never go for it.
So without Obamacare, Republicans are left with nothing. Zilch. Nada.
Except the prospect of more than 20 million people losing their health insurance, and a huge redistribution from the working class to the very rich.
Urgent. It's never been this bad.
Dear Common Dreams reader, It’s been nearly 30 years since I co-founded Common Dreams with my late wife, Lina Newhouser. We had the radical notion that journalism should serve the public good, not corporate profits. It was clear to us from the outset what it would take to build such a project. No paid advertisements. No corporate sponsors. No millionaire publisher telling us what to think or do. Many people said we wouldn't last a year, but we proved those doubters wrong. Together with a tremendous team of journalists and dedicated staff, we built an independent media outlet free from the constraints of profits and corporate control. Our mission from the outset was simple. To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. Building Common Dreams was not easy. Our survival was never guaranteed. When you take on the most powerful forces—Wall Street greed, fossil fuel industry destruction, Big Tech lobbyists, and uber-rich oligarchs who have spent billions upon billions rigging the economy and democracy in their favor—the only bulwark you have is supporters who believe in your work. But here’s the urgent message from me today. It’s never been this bad out there. And it’s never been this hard to keep us going. At the very moment Common Dreams is most needed and doing some of its best and most important work, the threats we face are intensifying. Right now, with just two days to go in our Spring Campaign, we're falling short of our make-or-break goal. When everyone does the little they can afford, we are strong. But if that support retreats or dries up, so do we. Can you make a gift right now to make sure Common Dreams not only survives but thrives? There is no backup plan or rainy day fund. There is only you. —Craig Brown, Co-founder |
Republicans are preparing to repeal the Affordable Care Act, and have promised to replace it with something that doesn't leave more than 20 million Americans stranded without health insurance.
Yet they haven't come up with a replacement. And they won't, for three reasons.
First, Republicans say they want the replacement to be "market-based." But Obamacare is already market based - relying on private, for profit health insurers.
That's already a problem. The biggest health insurers - Anthem, Aetna, Humana, Cigna, and United Health - are so big they can get the deals they want from the government by threatening to drop out of any insurance system Republicans come up with. Several have already dropped out of Obamacare.
Even now they're trying to merge into far bigger behemoths that will be able to extort even better terms from the Republicans.
Second, every part of Obamacare depends on every other part. Trump says he'd like to continue to bar insurers from denying coverage to individuals with preexisting conditions.
But this popular provision depends on healthy people being required to pay into the insurance pool, a mandate that Republicans vow to eliminate.
The GOP also wants to keep overall costs down, but they haven't indicated how. More than 80 percent of Americans who buy health insurance through Obamacare receive federal subsidies. Yet Republicans have no plan for raising the necessary sums.
Which gets us to the third big reason Republicans can't come up with a replacement. Revoking the tax increases in Obamacare - a key part of the repeal - would make it impossible to finance these subsidies.
The two biggest of these taxes - a 3.8-percentage-point surtax on dividends, interest and other unearned income; and a 0.9-percentage-point increase in the payroll tax that helps fund Medicare - are also the most progressive. They apply only to people earning more than $200,000 per year.
Immediately repealing these taxes, as the GOP says it intends to do, will put an average of $33,000 in the hands of the richest 1 percent this year alone, and a whopping $197,000 into the hands of the top 0.1 percent, according to the Tax Policy Center.
It would also increase the taxes of families earning between $10,000 and $75,000 - including just about all of Trump's working class voters.
Worse yet, eliminating the payroll tax increase immediately pushes Medicare's hospital fund back toward the insolvency that was looming before Obamacare became law.
Ultimately, the only practical answer to these three dilemmas is Medicare for all - a single payer system. But Republicans would never go for it.
So without Obamacare, Republicans are left with nothing. Zilch. Nada.
Except the prospect of more than 20 million people losing their health insurance, and a huge redistribution from the working class to the very rich.
Republicans are preparing to repeal the Affordable Care Act, and have promised to replace it with something that doesn't leave more than 20 million Americans stranded without health insurance.
Yet they haven't come up with a replacement. And they won't, for three reasons.
First, Republicans say they want the replacement to be "market-based." But Obamacare is already market based - relying on private, for profit health insurers.
That's already a problem. The biggest health insurers - Anthem, Aetna, Humana, Cigna, and United Health - are so big they can get the deals they want from the government by threatening to drop out of any insurance system Republicans come up with. Several have already dropped out of Obamacare.
Even now they're trying to merge into far bigger behemoths that will be able to extort even better terms from the Republicans.
Second, every part of Obamacare depends on every other part. Trump says he'd like to continue to bar insurers from denying coverage to individuals with preexisting conditions.
But this popular provision depends on healthy people being required to pay into the insurance pool, a mandate that Republicans vow to eliminate.
The GOP also wants to keep overall costs down, but they haven't indicated how. More than 80 percent of Americans who buy health insurance through Obamacare receive federal subsidies. Yet Republicans have no plan for raising the necessary sums.
Which gets us to the third big reason Republicans can't come up with a replacement. Revoking the tax increases in Obamacare - a key part of the repeal - would make it impossible to finance these subsidies.
The two biggest of these taxes - a 3.8-percentage-point surtax on dividends, interest and other unearned income; and a 0.9-percentage-point increase in the payroll tax that helps fund Medicare - are also the most progressive. They apply only to people earning more than $200,000 per year.
Immediately repealing these taxes, as the GOP says it intends to do, will put an average of $33,000 in the hands of the richest 1 percent this year alone, and a whopping $197,000 into the hands of the top 0.1 percent, according to the Tax Policy Center.
It would also increase the taxes of families earning between $10,000 and $75,000 - including just about all of Trump's working class voters.
Worse yet, eliminating the payroll tax increase immediately pushes Medicare's hospital fund back toward the insolvency that was looming before Obamacare became law.
Ultimately, the only practical answer to these three dilemmas is Medicare for all - a single payer system. But Republicans would never go for it.
So without Obamacare, Republicans are left with nothing. Zilch. Nada.
Except the prospect of more than 20 million people losing their health insurance, and a huge redistribution from the working class to the very rich.