SC experts say GOP health care bill likely to affect you

Trumpcare isn’t a replacement of the Affordable Care Act.

With 20 Republican defections, but with many Republicans in tough districts still having to cast tough “yes” votes, the House passed the American Health Care Act by the razor-thin margin of 217 to 213.

COLUMBIA, S.C. (WSPA)-Two University of SC professors who are experts on health care and insurance have different views on how the U.S. House Republicans’ health care bill would affect you.

And some Republican senators, including Lindsey Graham of SC, expressed alarm that House Republicans didn’t wait for their bill to be scored by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. He hailed a measure that dumps people off the insurance rolls by saying that “we will have great, great health care for everyone in our nation”.

America has the only healthcare system in the world created to avoid sick people.

Meanwhile, in these uncertain times, Marni Stahlman, president and CEO of Shepherd’s Hope free clinics, is one of the few players in the health-care world who has certainty. They don’t make any payments, they get fixed, and they drop out of the system as soon as they’re fixed. People often lose health insurance when they lose a job, switch career paths, or take time off after having a child, for example.

McConnell plans to move forward under special procedures that allow legislation to pass with a simple majority vote, instead of the 60 usually required for major bills in the Senate. Healthy people will be in their own insurance pool.

“Premiums are going to come down substantially”, he said.

Opponents of the bill have depicted its potential impact in nightmarish and sometimes overstated terms, suggesting it would completely void protections for sick people.

“When you have a risk pool that covers the catastrophic cost of people with catastrophic illnesses, the rest of the insurers, the rest of the insurance pool, don’t have to pay for those costs”, claimed a House Speaker Paul Ryan.

A Quinnipiac University survey in March found that American voters overwhelmingly disapproved of an earlier version of the House health-care plan by 56 percent to 17 percent. For years Republicans told them that the Act couldn’t work, would bankrupt America, and result in millions losing the healthcare they had before.

The GOP’s 2017 health care bill allows states to waive the community rating requirement so insurers could charge people with pre-existing conditions more.

But Trump backpedaled Friday, tweeting: “Of course the Australians have better healthcare than we do – everybody does”. “The deductibles are going to come down”.

She also restates her opposition to any bill that denies Medicaid funding to Planned Parenthood but pointed to several other concerns with the House bill, including whether it offers affordable coverage for people with preexisting conditions. Afterward the President brought a host of Republican House members to the White House for a celebratory press event. They don’t believe in sacrificing for the common good. Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Vista, for one, has long had on his website a statement ripping the law because it was “passed on a partisan vote with the rationale that we would have to pass it to find out what was in it”.

“We have a failing health care – I shouldn’t say this to our great gentlemen and my friend from Australia because you have better health care then we do”, said Trump in a press availability with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull aboard the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum in NY.

So what do we do now? Two women in the senate GOP conference – moderate Sens. “Problem with that is then it’s passed on to everyone else”, she says.

“I could probably tell you I read every word, and I wouldn’t be telling you the truth”, said Collins. So, these Republican governors may be putting pressure on Republican senators to reject what the Republican House did.