Financial FAQs
“Americans have just avoided another health care disaster in voting down the Senate’s ‘skinny’ Obamacare Repeal and Replace bill. Even though maintaining most of the taxes to pay for the Medicaid portion, it would have made insurance coverage prohibitively expensive for those older and sicker users with the removal of the private and employer mandate requirements that would cause younger and healthier people to leave the insurance markets.” Harlan Green Huffington Post
I wrote this in 2017 when Republicans had almost succeeded in repealing Obamacare, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) during President Trump’s first term.
And they are at it again by refusing to negotiate their continuing resolution (CR) with Democrats that has caused the latest government shutdown. The Democrats have been asking to keep the Obamacare subsidies in the CR that help to finance the Obamacare premiums for older and sicker folks. It’s 2017 all over again.
Republicans couldn’t repeal Obamacare then but they are about to succeed this time by allowing the Obamacare subsidies that keep premiums affordable for the 30 million users to lapse at the end of this year.
\Americans already have the worst health outcomes in the developed world, precisely because America is the only developed country—in fact, even of undeveloped countries—that doesn’t have universal coverage.
The result is one of the highest birth death rates, as well as diabetes, heart and other infectious disease rates—which are diseases usually associated with poorer, undeveloped countries and regions.
Why have Republicans been able to prevent a universal healthcare system that insures Americans that almost every other country in the world provides for their citizens?
I believe a major reason is because the U.S. has the highest income inequality in the developed world, as measured by the Gini Inequality Index that is accepted by economists. The U.S. is in 34th place of the 149 countries as ranked by the CIA’s World Factbook; with a Gini inequality index (41.8) like Bolivia and Djibouti. Whereas Denmark (29.3) and the European countries are at the top of equality rankings. The higher the index, the greater the gap between wealthy and poorer citizens of a country’s population.
Republicans have made more than 30 attempts to repeal President Obama signature achievement that required private health insurers to cover clients with existing illnesses for the first time.
A 2016 Commonwealth Club study listed Obamacare’s benefits. “…evidence indicates that the ACA has likely acted as an economic stimulus, in part by freeing up private and public resources for investment in jobs and production capacity. Moreover, the law’s payment and other cost-related reforms appear to have contributed to the marked slowdown in health spending growth seen in recent years.” Health care spending growth per person—both public and private—has slowed for five years.
· A number of ACA reforms, particularly related to Medicare, have likely contributed to the slowdown in health care spending growth by tightening provider payment rates and introducing incentives to reduce excess costs.
· Faster-than-expected economic growth and slower-than-expected health care spending have led to multiple downward revisions of the federal deficit and projected deficits.
· These trends have also been a boon to state and local government budgets, as job growth has improved state tax revenues while cost growth in health care programs has slowed. At the same time, expanding insurance to millions of poeople who were previously uninsured has supported local health systems and enhanced families’ ability to pay for necessities, including health care.
The benefits of Obamacare have become blindingly obvious since it was enacted in 2014, which for the first time required private health insurers to cover people with existing illnesses. So why have Republicans continued to oppose it?
Combined with RFK, Jr.’s cuts to the Department of Health and Human Services, Americans’ health outcomes will get even worse, making working Americans less productive.
Why shouldn’t affordable healthcare be a right for the poorest, as well as the wealthiest? Maybe even Republicans might begin to ask why?
Harlan Green © 2025
Follow Harlan Green on Twitter: https://twitter.com/HarlanGreen
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