Kevin Knauss: Health, History, Travel, Insurance
Posts related to proposals to change the ACA, Obamacare, under Donald Trump, actual changes to health insurance regulations under his administration.
Secretary Price’s positions on health insurance and health care are indefensible. They are cruel. They will devastate the lives of many women and children. I can only hope that voters wake up and take note of how Price and his Republican colleagues are hell bent on denying health care services to their children and neighbors and vote these people out of office. Women in America are not safe as long as Secretary Price is in charge of HHS.
HHS has already launched a new page aimed at touting their latest attempts to revise the Affordable Care Act. Providing Relief Right Now for Patients links to initiatives HHS hatchet man Price has started to improve (gut) the ACA. The page states, “We are going through every page of regulations and guidance related to the Affordable Care Act to determine whether or not they work for patients and whether or not they are making our health care system better.”
Under Secretary Price’s proposed rule, a health insurance company could deny coverage during the open enrollment period if the consumer had a health plan through the company in the prior year, but let the coverage lapse for non-payment. Before the consumer could enroll in the plan, the insurance company could demand payment for those months after the plan was terminated for non-payment.
Newly minted Health and Human Services Secretary Price has wasted no time issuing press releases to promote the much aligned Trumpcare alternative to Obamacare. As soon as the American Health Care Act (AHCA) was introduced HHS started touting Trumpcare as it has been dubbed. While most HHS news releases try to be upbeat, positive, and fact-based, Secretary Price has begun issuing HHS press releases to counter negative coverage Trumpcare has been getting.
In order determine how my clients might be affected by the proposed new Premium Tax Credits under the American Heath Care Act (AHCA or Trumpcare) introduced by the Republicans in March 2017, I compared the current income based Premium Tax Credits under the ACA to the new age based tax credits of the AHCA. On average, my clients included in the comparison will lose $157 per month to help pay for their health insurance. Young individuals, under 30 years old, have the smallest change of premium tax credit under the age based rules. Within my clients, people over 55 year old will get hit the hardest losing $200 to $400 per month in premium tax credit assistance.
For the first time in my life I can commiserate with people who are losing their livelihood because of a government action. Just as some workers have been displaced because the government outlawed a product, changed an environmental regulation, or enacted a trade deal that smothered their industry, I too am on the receiving end of government legislation that will decimate my income. If Obamacare is repealed and the subsidies that make health insurance affordable for millions of Americans ceases, I will lose 90% of my clients.
