White House Healthcare Bill revealed

Today, the United States Senate was granted access to the White House’s version of healthcare – and they weren’t happy.

The United States Senate has finally viewed the GOP’s healthcare bill to replace the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), and they’re not pleased. Key Republican senators are voicing their opposition to the latest attempt to reform United States healthcare.

High premiums are being cited as the main issue. Ted Cruz said to CNN, “this bill draft does not do nearly enough to lower premiums…because of this, I cannot support it as currently drafted.”

Rand Paul, the senator from Kentucky, even dubbed the new bill “Obamacare Lite”, showing the resistance of crucial Republican voters to pass the bill.

On the other side, Democrats are vociferously voicing their concerns. Senator Chuck Schumer (NY), the Senate Minority Leader stated that although “the House bill was mean, the Senate bill may be meaner.” Schumer went so far as to call the bill “heartless”.

As currently written, the bill removes the individual mandate present in Obamacare, causing concern for many. The healthcare system is based on healthy people paying for healthcare so that rates for everyone are lowered. There needs to be a balance of some sort between those who are healthy with insurance and those who are already sick. If healthy people pull out, rates rise immensely for the sick people who actually need it—and rise for those who need it in the future.

Obamacare’s individual mandate makes the pool of healthy people in the insurance system larger, which does lower premiums somewhat. Unfortunately, even with that mandate, not enough healthy people were participating to keep premiums down. Vox has an excellent video explaining the healthcare system, and why Trump’s first attempt to repeal and replace Obamacare wouldn’t work.

The bill, in the House of Representatives Version, would also defund Planned Parenthood, yet another crucial issue in politics right now for Americans. Senator Bernie Sanders from Vermont said “it is not a ‘healthcare’ bill when you defund Planned Parenthood and deny 2.5 million women their choice of healthcare providers…call it whatever you want, but please do not call this bill a ‘healthcare’ bill.”

Meanwhile, the White House maintains the both premiums and deductibles are going to go down.

Another aspect of Obamacare that the populace generally wants to see remain is the requirement that insurance policies allow parents to keep their children covered until age 26. While that is required in the bill, there is a further section that allows states to opt-out of this exact obligation. The same goes for preexisting conditions, such as mental health issues.

The Senate is expected to vote on the bill before July 4.

For more on the different healthcare bills, see NPR’s infographic here.