The Latest Version of the GOP Healthcare [Sic] Bill Is More Hot Garbage That Will Kill People

Amanda Michelle Gomez at ThinkProgress: The Senate's New Healthcare Bill Is Still a Mess. Amanda has a bunch of excellent analysis at the link; following is just the briefest glimpse of the latest horror.

The new bill does not change the main issues with Senate Republicans' earlier health care bill: the Better Care Reconciliation Act (BCRA), one of the most unpopular bill in the three decades.

The new bill still ends Obamacare's expansion of Medicaid to low-income adults and ultimately caps funding to the program. The bill also still restructures tax credits in a way that are less generous and increases premiums and deductibles for moderate-to-low-income adults looking to buy non-group insurance, or insurance not bought through an employer or corporation. And it weakens consumer protections if patients do decide to buy non-group insurance, by granting states leeway to allow insurance companies to opt-out of the Obamacare's essential benefits rule.

Perhaps the most controversial change in the flailing revival bill is a modified version of an idea from Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Mike Lee (R-UT). The bill adds funds to the existing market stability fund, that helps cover people with high medical costs (for people reading along, this begins on page 161 of the bill and is dubbed "Consumer Protection").

...In a scenario like this, sick people would find themselves on expensive insurance plans because healthy people would look to buy cheaper non-Obamacare plans. The imbalance would quickly lead to a death spiral, a loop where healthy people leaving the market drives up premiums to a point where eventually, the entire market collapses.

Without a strong mandate that penalizes people for not buying insurance, it's also hard to see why patients would want to buy skimpy, expensive care. Under this Republican plan, health experts say the non-group marketplace could collapse and it'll take Medicaid with it.

This bill is deadly trash. Still and always. Because the central objective isn't expanding healthcare coverage, but decimating it. And that's precisely what it does.

Yet the Republicans press on, with the most unpopular piece of legislation in memory, which they continue to champion with the arrogance of a party that does not believe it will ever be truly accountable to voters again.

If that hasn't started to profoundly concern you yet, it should.