Category: PA Budget and Policy Center

Now that the Senate Republican effort to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act has failed, let’s take a step back and understand why no bill based on the Republican approach to health care could have been fixed enough to reduce the pain to levels acceptable to a majority of Republicans in Congress, let alone to the American people. The basic design of the bill was deeply flawed from the perspective of anyone who thinks that America has a responsibility to guarantee quality, affordable health care to all. The design only made sense if one, instead, seeks a politically palatable way to reject that responsibility and reduce federal health care spending in order to cut taxes on large corporations and the rich. What started as a bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA) became a bill to partly repeal the health insurance regulations and subsidies for insurance purchased in… Continue reading

We have been focused recently on the impact of the Senate health care bill on Medicaid, mainly because the dangers of both the House and Senate bills to Medicaid have not been well known, and because the Senate bill is far worse than the House bill. So, in this and next post I want to remind you that if you purchase health insurance on the exchanges / marketplaces or receive it from your employer, the Senate bill is bad for you as well. The following table looks at the impact of the Senate bill on the average premiums Pennsylvanians at different ages and income levels will pay for silver plans on the marketplace. For all but 35 year olds at 300% of the poverty, premiums will be higher than under the ACA. For Pennsylvanians who have lower incomes or are older, the premium increases are substantial. For forty-five year olds… Continue reading