drkathieforcongress.com Special Election 11/7 to replace Chaffetz. UT03. Please help!
As a family physician running as the democratic nominee for the special election in the 3rd Congressional District of Utah, I have the most dire concerns about this transparent attempt to funnel healthcare dollars earmarked for the poor and middle class into a humongous tax reduction for the wealthiest Americans. We need to go beyond the word “mean” when we describe it.
Some facts about the Senate healthcare bill:
Starting in 2020, insurance plans will no longer have to offer the 10 essential services covered under the ACA. These include maternity care, emergency room visits, mental health visits, hospitalizations, preventive care, prescriptions, and others.
Patients will likely have to make a hard choice between a high deductible plan vs. A high premium plan.
Deductibles could reach 5 digits, above $10,000 per year
The individual mandate that requires people to carry health insurance similar to how auto insurance is required will be eliminated.
Healthy people will not sign up for plans until they are sick or pregnant, and then will be tempted to discontinue participation as soon as they no longer need it.
All insurance is based upon risk pools. Eliminating the requirement for young and healthy patients to be covered means that prices will go up as much as 23% from this one factor alone. It costs much more to cover people who are older and have chronic medical conditions.
Patients 40 years and older can be charged more. The ACA allowed older patients to be charged up to 3 times as much; both Congressional bills extend this to 5 times as much.
Subsidies will face a stronger threshold of 400% of poverty levels vs. 350%.
More insurance companies are liable to be priced out of the marketplace
The Senate version defunds Planned Parenthood for one year.
Both bills transform benefits from the poor and middle class into a gigantic tax cut for the wealthy.
Deep cuts to Medicaid are coming. This week, the Congressional Budget Office will estimate how many people are likely to lose coverage due to the provisions of the Senate bill.
Medicaid:
Covers 1/5th of Americans
Covers > 1/3rd of American kids
Covers ½ of all births
Covers 2/3rds of nursing home patients. These are middle class folks who have had to liquidate their assets to be eligible for medicaid. They are not traditionally poor patients. Medicaid cuts may force retirees out of nursing homes.
This legislation must not pass. It will put American healthcare on life support. It is that lethal. In medicine, we take an oath to “Do No Harm.” It seems the least our Congressional representatives could do is to take this oath: #Don’tKillOne’sConstituents.
In order to pass meaningful healthcare reform, Congress must return to Democratic governance. It is obvious that the GOP is more than mean. It’s toxic, partisan, selfish, greedy, murderous, and rapacious.
Please give a boost to my candidacy. We are the next Special Election for Congress. You don’t have to wait until 2018 to send a Democrat to Congress. drkathieforcongress.com.