Devil in health plan’s details

U.S. Rep. Andy Barr claims that his bill takes care of people with pre-existing conditions. This claim presupposes that people maintain continuous health care coverage. People who, for whatever reason, let their health insurance lapse for more than two months would lose that protection, and as with all things Republican, this will hurt the working poor. I have friends who, before Obamacare, were often out of the insurance market for more than two months for reasons beyond their control. The new law would devastate them.

The CBO and the Joint Committee of Taxation estimate that in 2018, the law Barr supports would result in 14 million more people losing their insurance and that by 2026, 23 million would lose coverage -- all so the rich get a big tax break.

Barr disingenuously cites Maine’s health care law as the standard by which House Republicans designed this abomination but fails to disclose some of the ugly details. In the first year of the Maine law’s implementation, people older than 60 saw premiums rise by 18 percent; small businesses saw increases of as much as 67 percent. Note also that two years after the Maine law took effect, Obamacare came into the market and helped shore up the plan.

This story was originally published June 30, 2017 at 3:15 PM with the headline "Devil in health plan’s details."