By Carole McWilliams
Details are coming out about the Republican health care plan that would replace Obamacare. The prospect is millions of people who will lose health insurance, many of them Republican voters.
Not surprisingly, the Trump regime tried to sabotage credibility of inconvenient data, namely the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office report released on March 13, projecting that 14 million fewer people will have health insurance by next year.
Trump mouthpiece Sean Spicer claimed that's bogus because only 9 million people signed up for coverage through Obamacare this past winter.
He neglected to mention all those people who will be phased out of expanded Medicaid coverage that was provided through Obamacare.
Himself promised everyone would have better health care for less. This isn't it!
But Trump now supports it, and his budget proposal for 2018 seriously sticks it to the very folks who are his core supporters, on top of this health care remake.
Indications are the health care "reform" will fall especially hard on Medicaid recipients and put some hospitals at risk as uncompensated emergency room visits skyrocket.
Also hard hit will be lower income people age 50 to 65 who benefited from a cap on how much higher their premiums could be versus younger people.
It was three times under Obamacare. Under the Republican scheme, it will be five times.
And Obamacare income-based subsidies to pay for insurance would be replaced with much less generous Republican age-based subsidies - $4,000 for people in this older age group, leaving individuals to pay a lot more or lose coverage.
And be advised that Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan has worked for several years to impose the same sort of "reform" on Medicare itself.
Prospects are in question for the Republican plan because the Tea Party/Freedom Caucus congressional Republicans think not enough people will lose coverage.
They don't want any subsidies.
House Speaker Ryan recently asked why the government should have any involvement in people's health care.
I'm really glad he asked that.
It's because health care is one of those things (along with needed services like child care and elder care, new homes that working class people can afford, or public transit) where our mythical free market capitalism doesn't work.
Private, for-profit companies can't or won't provide these services at a price people who need them can afford.
One of the functions of government should be to step in with taxpayer-funded services and infrastructure when the free market isn't doing it.
The Preamble to the Constitution lists promoting the general welfare as one of the reasons for setting up our government under said Constitution.
I'd argue that could include access to health care.
Instead, Republicans tout free market competition for health care, private for-profit insurance, and freedom of choice that have given us the highest per capita health care costs by far among First World countries, and worse health care outcomes in many categories.
Republican freedom of choice seems to mean your choice to either buy food and pay rent, or get needed health care.
