This is the average difference in credits in 2020 for people buying insurance in marketplaces/exchanges under Obamacare and Ryan/GOP/Trumpcare. The big difference illustrated here is that in addition to making it dramatically harder to buy insurance, Trumpcare doesn't factor in how costs vary from state to state.
So if you're from Alaska, you're screwed bigly - and pretty much everywhere else too, but a bit less.
Look we're Alaskans, we are quite used to paying exorbitant prices for just about EVERYTHING. But this at least twice as much as everybody else in the country.
And if that were not bad enough, and trust me from an Alaskan standpoint it is, the new bill also depletes Medicaid at an accelerated pace.
Once again courtesy of TPM:
By repealing a payroll tax on high earners that provided a critical additional revenue stream for the Medicare trust fund, the GOP's proposed American Health Care Act would speed up the fund’s exhaustion by as many as three to four years, according to estimates from health care policy experts.
“It’s clear, simple and undeniable that this bill would aversely affect the solvency of Medicare,” Paul Van De Water, a Medicare expert at the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities told TPM.
So even though Alaskans are already getting screwed, older Alaskans will get screwed even harder.
Not that the Republicans give two shits because they have long been dedicated to undermining every social program available to help those Americans in need.
So has this had any impact on support for this bill from Alaska's representatives?
Well Don Young has been largely silent on the issue, while Dan Sullivan has expressed an interest in keeping parts of Obamacare in place, but has not spoken publicly about his bill in particular.
Lisa Murkowski however HAS spoken about the bill and seems to be trapped between a rock and a hard place:
Murkowski is not yet giving the house GOP leadership's plan her stamp of approval.
“It's kind of premature to say I’m there or not there,” she said.
She's one of four senators who sent a letter to Majority Leader Mitch McConnell expressing their concerns about the future of Medicaid.
“We wanted to just make very clear that we want to be there for our constituents who have received the benefit of Medicaid expansion. Pulling the rug out from under those vulnerable populations is not really the direction we want to go,” explained the senator.
Murkowski is troubled by parts of the new plan that would give the same tax credits to patients no matter what state they're from.
“Our costs in alaska are higher than anywhere else in the country,” Murkowski noted.
I don't really see how any of these three can sign onto this bill and then be secure in their chances for reelection.
There political opponents are sure to use a vote in favor of this bill to paint the three Republicans as heartless, cruel, and disconnected from the needs of their constituents.
But then again being heartless and cruel has certainly never cost Don Young very many votes.
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