To The Reader’s Forum:

The replacement plan for Obamacare is out and it is nothing more than Obamacare with less government subsidies for low-income earners and tax breaks for the rich.

It still gives help to some people to buy health coverage and does absolutely nothing to lower health care costs. That’s because, as Mike Huckabee said on Fox and Friends, health care is going to continue to go up and there is not much you can do about it. All these Republican politicians that said they were going to bring down healthcare costs were full of BS. Their plan will make insurance just as expensive with less cost sharing from the government.

Listening to the rhetoric from these people really enlightens you as to how little they know about health insurance. Just imagine. These Republican congressmen have had seven years to come up with a plan, and all they did was water down Obamacare. This is far from promises made. There is nothing in this that makes it more patient-centered. It will not be affordable unless you buy a plan that covers nothing and insurance companies can now write policies in that other language that only they know that prevents you from understanding what you are buying. So much for patient centered!

They say you can now choose your doctor. This is the biggest lie I have heard for the new plan. No one could ever choose the their doctor. Insurance companies make deals with doctors to treat the people in their network. This has always been the case before and after Obamacare and it will continue. If the doctor you want is not in the network, you will probably end up going to another Doctor. Health saving accounts will help with the cost of health care. This sounds like the 401K plan for retirement. It is only good if you make enough money to put in the savings account. This plan cuts taxes for wealthy people and takes away coverage affordability to middle and lower incomes. Trump promised it would be better than Obamacare. I wonder, better for who?

Obamacare could have been fixed and modified in the last seven years to make it more sustainable and accessible but Republicans refused to negotiate on any of it. Some of the mandates could have been eased or eliminated and some caps put on payouts. The bottom line is good insurance cost good money and insurance pools are the only way to lower costs for older Americans. If you are over 50, try to buy insurance outside a pool. You won’t like it. Rand Paul comes up with a lame idea of allowing people to join pools of others. That would work except that only older Americans would join these pools and drive up costs for their pool because of the imbalance of older people vs younger. An improved Obamacare is the best answer. Going backward in not progress.

Edward Carutis

Mayville