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Do you think Obamacare will be repealed with the change of President after the next election?
I have finally chosen a plan and found a way to minimize my out of pocket expenses and my premiums through the American Health Care Act (Obamacare) and I'm concerned that I have gone through all of this to have it taken away in 2017. Do you think that the next President will support the rebates and deductible assistance that is currently offered to low to medium income Americans?
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Comments
I think this question has already been answered by the way that the Republicans, leading up to the latest SCOTUS case concerning ObamaRomneyHeritageCare, were falling all over themselves to assure nervous constituents that their premium tax credit would not be rescinded. The "plans" that they have been coming up as replacement all keep the major tenets of ObamaRomneyHeritageCare intact (although less generous with the tax credit), with the major exception of the mandates. both on employers (of a certain size) & individuals; their plans completely dispense with the employer mandate (which I agree with as the best way to ensure the political viability of ObamaRomneyHeritageCare is to take away the ability of folks to get tax-advantaged coverage via their employer, forcing them into the individual market, the strengthening of which is what ObamaRomneyHeritageCare was all about), but seem to come up with a quirky rule that folks who do not keep coverage lose the right to purchase regulated coverage. This last part is the typical, cynical way that Republicans operate: get a law that sounds great at first, but that later becomes bad; in this case, what would happen is that folks would find out that they are both sick and not eligible to get coverage, thereby making those gutless t3rds put back in the guaranteed issue, but without the individual mandate, which would really screw over folks who wouldn't get a tax credit based on the cot of coverage.
The question politically is where do we go from here. The political will to have very strong enforcement of the mandate is just not there. The latest Republican replacement plan in essence has a stealth mandate in that the ability to get coverage through a guaranteed risk pool requires that the individual maintain continuous coverage. This will serve to look good at first, but then as all the folks who didn't buy coverage - either because they are irresponsible idiots that have been infantilized by the Republican Party, or have legitimately had some financial crisis - will be cast off into the netherworld of "no coverage for you"; of course, these folks, once they get sick and realize their situation, will become diehard Medicare-For-All voters, even voting for a transsexual candidate if that's what it takes.
Now, it remains to be seen how this will all come out, but any plan that does not stop folks from falling through the cracks will be a non-starter with the Democrats, and therefore the Republicans will own whatever version of the ACA that comes out; the net effect is that they probably will get very scared and only change a few things - most probably allowing for there to be an alternate Exchange with every Wild West free market plan that can be thought out that does not have any guarantees to be side by side with the original ACA Exchange that will have the guaranteed coverage, but there being no mandates at all, even the virtually toothless one that is there now. Of course what will happen is that sick or high-risk folks will be excluded from the alternate Exchange (which will be rather inexpensive as only good risk folks will be allowed) an be stuck on the old Exchange, which of course will have super skyrocketing rates. Lower income folks will probably continue to get a premium tax credit, although it may be a bit less, and it will only extended up to maybe 300% of poverty. If you're healthy, you could probably get a plan that is inexpensive, but it will be as bad as a current ACA plan with a very high deductible.