“We think Vermonters should know this,” Al Gobeille, secretary of the Agency of Human Services, said at a media briefing in Montpelier. “You cannot tell from the coverage of these bills what impact this will have on Vermonters and we think that’s important.”
The Republican House majority’s proposal passed two key committees in Washington on Thursday and could reach the House floor by the end of March, according to news reports. The plan would replace federal insurance subsidies with individual tax credits and grants. President Donald Trump has endorsed the plan.
Gobeille said he and his staff pored through the legislation, trying to determine its impact on Vermont. “We understand the legislative process,” he said. “There’s still an opportunity for this to be made a great bill.”
Congress’ plan, as written, would hurt not just Vermont Medicaid recipients, he said. Some Vermonters would opt to go uninsured. Low-income Vermonters would pay a higher share of their income for health insurance. But those making up to $75,000 would be eligible for new tax credits.
A 27-year-old Vermonter making $25,000 a year is eligible for $4,534 in subsidies now, which brings the cost of coverage to $2,995 a year, according to Mary Kate Mohlman, the state’s director of health care reform. Under Congress’ plan, that person’s cost would jump to $5,529, she said.
“People won’t buy insurance,” Gobeille said.
Congress’ plan would remove penalties now in place for those who do not have health care coverage.
“Tough choices would have to be made,” said Cory Gustafson, commissioner of the state Department of Vermont Health Access. Among the possibilities: reducing Medicaid benefits and lowering rates paid to providers.
Mike Fisher, chief health care advocate for Vermont Legal Aid, listened to Gobeille’s presentation and has studied the proposed legislation himself. He said he agrees with the dire assessment.
“The bottom line here is many Vermonters will have no option but to go without care,” Fisher said. “They’ll get sicker, they’ll be less productive, their families will suffer and ultimately, people won’t live as long.”
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It’s a no brainer if more old and sick die and are less productive in the workforce preventing all those abortions will flood the tax coffers with new taxable citizens…that’s all we are to them.
Try getting it right and stop scaring people. VT was going to lose more then 200 Mil under obamacare… Hell look how much we have lost just trying to get a system that works in place.
I appreciate these officials pointing out the problems with the Trump/ Ryan proposal to gut coverage with their plans to dismantle the ACA. Governor Scott and Republican members of the state legislature need to speak up loudly to encourage their party nationally to pull back from this dangerous plan.
But the problems with their plans for health care don’t stop with just the financial implications for the state or low/middle-income individuals associated with “Trumpcare.” For example, the proposal would largely remove the mandate that insurance companies provide coverage for substance abuse treatment, mental health services, and most preventative care – creating a huge gap in urgently needed coverage of opiate addiction. Refusing to pay Planned Parenthood for providing care will hobble an essential provider that many depend on for basic health care.
Beyond destroying ACA coverage, Paul Ryan and the Republicans also want to assault Medicaid, by turning it into a block grant program, which will ultimately provide fewer resources for the states to cover poor and disabled people under the guise of “flexibility.”
And the Trump budget proposes massive cuts in “discretionary” spending on numerous life-saving health programs (maternal/child health, vaccines, community health centers, HIV care/prevention, NIH research, substance abuse treatment, epidemiology, etc), as well as scaling back the international health programs that help protect us against things like Zika and Ebola — as to pay for his Trump’s proposed massive military spending increase.
As a country without a coherent national health system, healthcare in the United State is already a tattered net – the Trump/ Ryan/ Republican proposal will destroy that safety net with simultaneous weakening of multiple components of the system, endangering us all.
Perhaps people will wake up and see that eating for health removing all GMO, Sugar, pesticides, and eating food that your grandparents would know how to prepare, garden fare and home canning, plus getting off long term prescriptions, never starting them in the first place, and breathing, as well as homeopathy, herbology, acupuncture, naturopaths, and drinking more well or spring water NOT IN PLASTIC bottles. If everyone took the money they were throwing away at big pharma and big insurance, and instead put it in organics, they would actually get better in the majority of cases. The load of chemicals that we are imbibing, ingesting, breathing and accepting is making us toxic. Good book written by a famous woman: from Tox-Sick to Not Sick by Suzanne Sommers, or Run From the Cure, the Rick Simpson Story on Youtube, another book: You’re not Sick You’re Thirsty, another book by Gwen Olsen Confessions of a RX salesman. Another huge thing Vermont could do for the health of it’s workforce is to mandate employers give employees at least 2 siestas of 40 minutes a week. Grow gardens everywhere, and have all of VT go organic and watch the sickness evaporate. In Cuba, after the embargo when they needed to grow their own, their overall health improved. Dairy with growth hormone, well that makes people grow too! Ingest only grass fed, free range pigs, steers and chickens, that’s your health care money right there! Have your own chickens, etc etc! Oh, be certain to watch Vaxxed, before you put your new baby through the vaccine mill. Babies were not meant to have mercury injected in them. The autism rates used to be 1 in 15000, just a few decades ago, now it is 1 in 42! 1 in forty two! by 2035 it’s expected to be 1 in 2 with 80% of black children affected. These are the dark gifts of allopathic medicine and a for profit pharmaceutical industry. Do you all really take those drugs they advertise with the side affects they list on tv? Cmon! get some common sense, your body is healing machine, if you just support it a little, believe in it a little and stop poisoning it!
I am 65, disabled and receive social security disability. I just did mi Medicaid interview on the phone and was told I am over the income amount limit by 228.00! I get 1104 per month from ssdi for income and that is it! I also suffer from neuropathy and it is very hard to get around. They also do not count in how much it costs to get to and from appointments. Most of that goes for rent, food and other everyday expenses. Now I have to do what is called a spend down so I have to make a choice of either cutting out food or rent and go homeless or what do I do? Meanwhile in Montpelier the rich house and senate leaders are getting richer and fatter while us little people don’t seem to count! The state needs to update it’s century old rules and regulations, step back and take a real look at the problems us Vermonters are having!!