The nation’s most famous retiree organization, which represents 38 million older
Americans, has fired off letters critical of two proposals that have figured
prominently in GOP discussions about replacing the Affordable Care Act. One of
those proposals would relax the law’s “age
bands.” The other would transform Medicaid into a so-called block grant.
First up, age bands.
The Affordable Care Act put a stop to that, by stipulating that insurers could charge their oldest customers no more than three times what they charge their youngest ones. This requirement is a big reason why many younger people pay more for insurance now than they did before the health care law came along.
Republicans love to talk about how relaxing or eliminating
the age bands would mean lower premiums for younger people. And that’s true,
even if the benefits for young consumers would be less
dramatic than Republicans sometimes suggest. What Republicans don’t mention is that, as a consequence,
premiums for older people would go back up again.
And block grants.
Republicans boast about these savings for the federal
Treasury, along with the control it would give governors who bristle under
Washington’s oversight. But with less money to spend, states wouldn’t be able
to finance as many benefits for as many people.
They’d have to make cuts of their own ― some of which would
almost surely fall on older people, particularly since the majority of spending
in Medicaid goes to elderly and disabled people who use it to supplement
Medicare. Among other things, Medicaid is the nation’s largest payer of nursing
home care.
Yeah, the Cleveland Clinic is pissed, too.
Doctors, nurses and students have signed
an open letter pleading with the clinic to publicly condemn
Trump's immigration ban and use its power to protect medical
professionals from deportation. The letter also urges the hospital system
to cancel a fundraiser set for later this month at Trump's Mar-a-Lago
resort in Palm Beach, Fla.
“Through this action you are supporting a president who has,
in his first ten days in office, reinstated the global gag rule, weakened the
Affordable Care Act, fast-tracked construction of both the Keystone XL and
Dakota Access Pipelines through legally protected native lands, and banned
legal U.S. residents from majority-Muslim countries,” the signers said
about the Cleveland Clinic's upcoming fundraiser. “All of these
actions directly harm human health and well-being in the United States and
abroad.
“Your willingness to hold your fundraiser at a Trump resort
is an unconscionable prioritization of profit over people. It is impossible for
the Cleveland Clinic to reconcile supporting its employees and patients while
simultaneously financially and publicly aiding an individual who directly harms
them.”
As of Friday morning, the letter had 1,141 signatories.
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