Paul Krugman: The Cruelty and Fraudulence of Mitch McConnell’s Health Bill [feedly]

Paul Krugman: The Cruelty and Fraudulence of Mitch McConnell's Health Bill
http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2017/07/paul-krugman-the-cruelty-and-fraudulence-of-mitch-mcconnells-health-bill.html

"the last act in a long con":

The Cruelty and Fraudulence of Mitch McConnell's Health Bill, by Paul Krugman, NY Times: A few days ago the tweeter in chief demanded that Congress enact "a beautiful new HealthCare bill" before it goes into recess. But now we've seen Mitch McConnell's latest version of health "reform," and "beautiful" is hardly the word for it. In fact, it's surpassingly ugly, intellectually and morally. Previous iterations of Trumpcare were terrible, but this one is, incredibly, even worse. ...

The most important change in the bill ... is the way it would effectively gut protection for people with pre-existing medical conditions. The Affordable Care Act put minimum standards on the kinds of policies insurers were allowed to offer; the new Senate bill gives in to demands by Ted Cruz that insurers be allowed to offer skimpy plans that cover very little, with very high deductibles that would make them useless to most people.

The effects of this change would be disastrous. Don't take my word for it: It's what the insurers themselves say. ...

Or to put it another way, this bill would send insurance markets into a classic death spiral. Republicans have been predicting such a spiral for years, but keep being wrong: ...Obamacare ... is stabilizing, and doing pretty well in states that support it. But this bill would effectively sabotage all that progress.

And let's be clear: Many of the victims of this sabotage would be members of the white working class, people who voted for Donald Trump in the belief that he really meant it when he promised that there would be no cuts to Medicaid and that everyone would get better, cheaper insurance. So why ... is there even a chance that it might become law?

The main answer, I'd argue, is that ... conservative ideology always denied the proposition that people are entitled to health care; the Republican elite considered and still considers people on Medicaid, in particular, "takers" who are effectively stealing from the deserving rich.

And the conservative view has always been that Americans have health insurance that is too good, that they should pay more in deductibles and co-pays, giving them "skin in the game," and thus an incentive to control costs.

So what we're seeing here is supposed to be the last act in a long con, the moment when the fraudsters cash in, and their victims discover how completely they've been fooled. The only question is whether they'll really get away with it. We'll find out very soon.

 -- via my feedly newsfeed