Tomorrow, the House will vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act and replace it with Paul Ryan’s much-touted alternative, the American Health Care Act. The GOP proposal—or Trumpcare, as it’s known—would, among other things, make massive cuts to the Medicaid program and stealthily cut taxes for wealthy Americans (shocker).
Given that the Republicans have been griping about the ACA for years, you’d think they’d have enough support to ram the bill through. Not necessarily. In fact, the bill faces opposition not only from conservative factions of the GOP wing, including members of the Freedom Caucus, for not going far enough, but also from moderate conservatives wary of rolling back Medicaid expansion. Their opposition could sink the bill. According to CBS News, twenty-five House Republicans now say they won’t support it in its current form.
While we’re waiting on the highly anticipated House vote, research released this afternoon from the office of Democratic congressman David Price suggests that the changes proposed to the ACA will disproportionately impact low-income, elderly Tar Heels. According to data compiled by the Kaiser Family Foundation, North Carolina will face the second-highest premium increase in the country, and health care costs for North Carolinians will shoot up by an average of $7,500. Those changes would fall heavily on the shoulders of older state residents: for a sixty-year-old netting $22,000 a year, for example, premiums would rise by more than $14,000.
Who knew health care could be so complicated?
