Understanding the House GOP's health care plan

The plan to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act is underway in Washington right now, but it's not going smoothly. The New York Times reports that the GOP's plan could take away the ACA's expanded Medicaid provisions that give coverage to more than 10 million people in 31 states. Fear of losing coverage has caused many Americans - even republicans - to ask their representatives to protect their right to affordable health care.  
An incredible resource to explore this issue is the Associated Press's interactive study on health care reform.
Screen cap of AP's interactive look at the GOP's proposed changes to parts of theAffordable Care Act or “Obamacare."
One striking part of the GOP's plan is the additions to the continuous coverage requirement. If an individual loses coverage, they could face a 30 percent penalty on top of premiums. This means people must have health insurance coverage or else they will be fined when they do eventually buy a health insurance plan. The original ACA also had a continuous coverage requirement, but people were taxed for not having any insurance rather than being taxed for previously not having it. Seth Chandler from Forbes explains this further: 
"The idea is that, in order to avoid those higher rates, individuals will be incentivized to purchase health insurance even in those years when they feel the premiums are high relative to their expected costs."
It's unclear if "ObamaCare lite" will pass through the House and onto congress. After the initial reaction of its unveiling, the White House said the bill was simply a work in progress and was open to revision.

One can only hope that the GOP and lawmakers behind this plan will reconsider society's needs and what their constituents want - rather than what's best for their own wallets.



Sources/Further reading:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/06/us/politics/affordable-care-act-obamacare-health.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GbkvEvWaQs

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