The full text of the new “American Health Care Act” is an atrocity which has obviously had some deep, if insane, thought. It includes such essentials as provisions for assessing the entitlements of lottery winners to health care. Imagine the mindset which would bother to think of such a thing. Nothing else to do but find ways of depriving Americans of health care? Got it.
The actual legislation is a maze of cross references to other legislation. In other countries they simply create a schedule of references, but not in the US, where legislation is written like a porn novel. As usual, medical experts opposed the bill and were as usual ignored.
Health funds are simultaneously faced with a “death spiral” (apt expression” in regard to the need to raise premiums, and therefore lose clients. In theory, health funds can now charge older people more for health insurance, too, which of course will naturally reduce the number of people taking out health insurance, or dropping out of cover. (This happened in Australia some years ago. The health funds spiked premiums and lost huge numbers of clients almost immediately.)
To put this nutcase legislation in perspective:
The American health system is in meltdown. Medical errors are the third highest cause of death in the US according to 2016 data. 251,000 Americans die per year in US hospitals. That’s five times the total fatalities in the entire Vietnam War, per year.
643,000 Americans declare bankruptcy every year due to medical bills. In 2009, they were responsible for over 60% of American bankruptcies. Not much has apparently changed since. Prices certainly haven’t gone down.
Approximately 53 million Americans live with some sort of disability.
Under “Obamacare”, the Affordable Care Act, 8.6% of the population didn’t have medical insurance. The highest number cited for uninsured states was 10.9%. Under Trumpcare, 24 million Americans will no longer eligible in coming years. (Please note these figures are pretty malleable and in the media spin cycle at this stage. There’s no doubt that Trumpcare does reduce entitlements, but the actual figures may be higher or lower in practice. Either way, Trumpcare adds to those no longer in the zone for cover.)
The winners and losers in this train wreck of maladministration were defined by The New York Times and the losers include a pretty significant part of the population, notably the poor and the old. Women seeking to use Planned Parenthood will also be negatively affected by reduced funding.
Health? What health?
The one thing you will see no mention of, in any form, is the need for people to be healthy. Apparently it’s OK to have millions of sick people roaming America, with or without contagious diseases. You’d think that ill health, like poverty, was a life choice.
Conservative governments around the world have attacked human health at every opportunity. Health costs have gone out of control and stayed out of control. Absurd health costs are now the norm. Maybe conservatives don’t get diseases, (understandable; even hepatitis would have some social standards) but most humans do.
The story so far is that anything which makes life bearable is under attack. The real disease is the Conservative Insanity Pandemic. Everything must go, it seems. Affordability, the basis of modern economics, is now virtually illegal or impossible. Quality of life is basically disintegrating. Health, we know about. Pollution is now another sacred right of the rich, and that’s all there is to it, according to them.
All of these measures basically kill people, directly or indirectly. The AHCA will definitely crash the American health care system, kill even more people than it already does, and leave generational damage. Trumpcare hasn’t yet passed the Senate, but if it, or anything like it, does, there will be chaos.
