Scott 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.
Scott 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.
Scott 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.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
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