A few comments:
Note that the GOP plan would also bring back the ability for insurance companies to refuse coverage of preexisting conditions.
Alan Grayson had it right years ago: the Republican Party's plan for health care is for people to get sick and die.
The Republican Party must sit around drinking 100 year old scotch and brainstorming new ways to hurt Americans.
The "justification" for this by many is that Americans are living longer. Well, maybe, if you're a white guy working behind a desk. Then there is the reality that many people who wind up unemployed after age 50 can't find suitable employment.
The biggest rising issues in elder care are mental health and substance abuse especially in the baby boomer generation and unfortunately it is extremely underfunded and overlooked
House Republicans, led by Speaker Paul Ryan, have yet another plan to “repeal and replace” Obamacare. As of February of this year, they had already held at least 62 votes to get rid of the Affordable Care Act in one way or another—all of which failed. As November approaches, this appears to be Ryan’s last-ditch attempt to make it look as though the GOP has an actual agenda and not just a list of things they would like to get rid of.
The Republicans’ plan includes many of their perennial favorite ideas, “such as allowing consumers to buy health insurance across state lines, expanding health savings accounts, reforming medical liability rules and giving block grants to states to run Medicaid programs for the poor.”
Sheila R. MacArthur's post.
Last Updated on June 22, 2016
House Republicans, led by Speaker Paul Ryan, have yet another plan to “repeal and replace” Obamacare. As of February of this year, they had already held at least 62 votes to get rid of the Affordable Care Act in one way or another—all of which failed. As November approaches, this appears to be Ryan’s last-ditch attempt to make it look as though the GOP has an actual agenda and not just a list of things they would like to get rid of.
The Republicans’ plan includes many of their perennial favorite ideas, “such as allowing consumers to buy health insurance across state lines, expanding health savings accounts, reforming medical liability rules and giving block grants to states to run Medicaid programs for the poor.”
But the real sucker punch comes in their plan to raise the Medicare eligibility age from 65 to 67, a move that potentially represents tens of thousands of dollars of additional healthcare spending for everyday Americans just reaching retirement age.
Oh, and as always, they threw in tort reform for good measure, to make sure that Americans hurt by medical malpractice cannot obtain appropriate justice through the courts.
Republican efforts to dump President Obama’s signature achievement have gotten more complicated, however, now that the healthcare law has been in place for six years and its effects are being broadly felt by the American health care system. This might explain why they’ve maintained some of the most popular parts of the act, including coverage for pre-existing conditions and letting younger people stay on their parents’ plans until age 26.
For starters, the uninsured rate has plummeted, meaning that a full repeal of the ACA would be tantamount to taking coverage away from millions of Americans
But that’s not all. According to a report from the Urban Institute and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, “The United States is spending trillions — yes, trillions — less on health care than government forecasters expected when Obamacare passed in 2010.” If uninsured rates were falling and costs were rising, that chart wouldn’t be very compelling, especially for Republicans. Fortunately for Obamacare, updated cost projections show that we’re spending about $2.6 trillion less on healthcare than expected. 
Additionally, there is now evidence that hospitals are actively striving to reduce readmission rates due to the ACA’s cuts to Medicare reimbursement rates. In other words, hospitals are taking better care of patients so they won’t have to come back to the hospital for costly medical procedures.
Efforts to repeal and/or replace Obamacare may well still have some support among the GOP electorate, though it has been repeatedly shown that people love Obamacare when it’s not called Obamacare, but it is hard to imagine Americans of any political affiliation reacting kindly to a raise in the Medicare eligibility age.
(Featured image via Getty Images)
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