Walker has unveiled his plan to repeal
Obamacare and replace it with a system that would kill an estimated
9,800 Americans a year who could no longer afford their health
insurance.
Walker’s plan to replace the ACA would
roll back all of the patient protections in the law, and end subsidies
for more than 13 million Americans. Walker replaces the subsidies with
tax credits. According to Walker, “My plan would provide refundable tax
credits to individuals who do not have employer-based coverage to make
health insurance more affordable and more portable. This would
strengthen health insurance markets by enabling individuals to use their
tax credits to buy insurance outside the workplace.”
The Walker tax credit would range from $900-$3,000 a
year. The problem with any plan that replaces Obamacare with tax
credits is that it requires people to buy the health insurance before
they get the tax credit. The reason the ACA has been so effective is
that subsidies lower the purchase price of the policy. Health insurance
becomes more affordable, and more people can buy coverage.
Before Obamacare, health insurance costs had
increased 131% in ten years. Walker’s tax credits would not provide
enough for an individual to purchase affordable health insurance if the
market reverts to pre-Obamacare behavior. Under Walker, workers and
individuals would have to make more money to afford their health
insurance, and the tax credit would not cover the cost of the policy.
The result of the Walker plan would be an increase
in the number of people who did not have health insurance because they
could not afford it.
According to the American Public Health Association, 9,800 Americans will die each year from lack of health insurance if the subsidies are taken away.
Walker’s plan would kill nearly 10,000
Americans a year because they could no longer afford health insurance.
The majority of those deaths would come from the poor, low wage workers,
and minorities.
Republicans
wrap their Obamacare repeal plans around the rhetoric of freedom, but
the only freedom that Republican ACA replacement plans give the American
people is the freedom to die because they can’t afford to see a doctor.
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