Day: January 7, 2025

What About Trumpcare

Seniors Beware!

As we count down to the swearing in day many of use especially seniors are apprehensive about the future of our health care.

Let’s look at what has been amusingly termed as “Trumpcare” (I guess they are jealous of the term of Obamacare)….these are only possibilities, nothing written in stone at this time….

The Affordable Care Act (ACA), widely known as Obamacare, has shaped the American healthcare landscape for over a decade. Despite attempts to repeal it, the ACA remains intact, though there is ongoing debate.

In 2017, Republicans proposed the American Healthcare Act (AHCA), dubbed Trumpcare, as a replacement. Although it didn’t pass, its provisions highlighted financial shifts that could significantly affect coverage and costs.

Here’s a look at how Trumpcare’s proposals compare to Obamacare and what these changes could mean for healthcare in America.

1. Trumpcare Proposed Rolling Back Medicaid Expansion

Trumpcare aimed to roll back Medicaid expansion introduced under Obamacare, which extended coverage to individuals earning up to 138% of the federal poverty level (FPL). Instead of federal funding, Trumpcare proposed block grants for states to manage Medicaid programs.

If this shift is proposed again, it might lead to funding cuts, particularly in Southern states that opted out of expansion. Millions of low-income individuals could face reduced access to affordable healthcare.

2. Trumpcare Planned Changes to Subsidies

The Trumpcare policy proposal retained financial subsidies but changed how they were calculated, focusing on age rather than income and family size, as seen under Obamacare. If this approach is implemented in the next years, assistance for older Americans with lower incomes could be reduced.

Additionally, enhanced ACA subsidies enacted under the Biden administration are set to expire in 2025. Without congressional action, premiums could double, impacting states like Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas, where enrollment surged in recent years.

There is so much more—

https://www.moneytalksnews.com/slideshows/ways-trumpcare-could-redefine-your-healthcare-costs/

That’s right those that his staunchest supporters will be hurt the most if these plans go into operation…..

  • More uninsured Americans
    The elimination of the individual mandate is projected to produce 24 million more uninsured Americans by 2026.3
  • Potential waivers of essential benefits
    Obamacare requires every state to provide coverage for a list of “essential benefits” such as maternity care or mental health care. Under Trumpcare, states could obtain a waiver to be excluded from these requirements and can instead draft their own set of essential benefits.
  • Higher potential costs for people with preexisting conditions
    As mentioned above, subsidies could be offered to some people with preexisting conditions. But these subsidies will be countered by the fact that states will be able to obtain waivers allowing insurance companies to charge higher premiums for people with preexisting conditions who experienced a lapse in coverage.
  • Potentially higher premiums for older adults
    Under current law, insurance companies may charge an older adult up to three times as much as they would charge a younger person for the same plan. Trumpcare is projected to increase that limit to five times as much as a younger person.
  • A rollback of Medicaid expansion
    Obamacare installed funds for states to expand Medicaid, but Trumpcare would cut that funding.

I hope the ignorant among us are happy with their stupidity.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Time To Eliminate The Congressional Gerontocracy

Gerontocracy? Yep the rule by old farts.

I have a pet peeve, I know I have many, but this one is paramount in our government….it is time for the reform of Congress to begin and please start with the amount of old farts that stumble through the governing process.

Let’s look at today’s Congress just a few things….Pelosi age 84 falls and has to have a hip replacement, then there is the head GOPer in the Senate, McConnell age 82,  who over the last few years has fallen multiple times that last time in messed up his wrist and now we have a sitting Representative that is in a care home….let’s not forget about the senile old fart that was over 100 years old and still serving in Congress…..

Concerns that elected officials in Congress are too old resurfaced over the weekend following news that retiring U.S. Rep. Kay Granger, 81, has been residing at a senior living facility, according to her son. Granger has not cast a vote since July.

On Friday, the outlet The Dallas Express published an investigation into Granger’s whereabouts, reporting that Granger (R-Texas) is currently living at Tradition Senior Living in Fort Worth, which provides memory care services. Granger’s son, Brandon Granger, said that his mother is not in the memory care facility, but he said she does reside at Tradition Senior Living, according to The Dallas Morning News. The outlet also reported that her son said she has been “having some dementia issues late in the year.”

Reacting to the news on Sunday, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) wrote: “Kay Granger’s long absence reveals the problem with a Congress that rewards seniority & relationships more than merit & ideas. We have a sclerotic gerontocracy.”

“American gerontocracy, on both sides of the political aisle, is an absolute embarrassment,” wrote the journalist Mehdi Hasan on Saturday.

The journalist Ken Klippenstein echoed these remarks. In a post on Bluesky he argued it shouldn’t be taboo for the media to point out when elected officials appear to be impaired by age. “Part of why the gerontocracy exists is because the news media is so squeamish about calling this stuff out,” he wrote.

According to a breakdown from The Washington Post in 2023, the median age in Congress has been trending upward in recent decades. Last year, 48% of all members of Congress were Baby Boomers, and 19 lawmakers elected to the 118th Congress are members of the Silent Generation, meaning they were born at some point between 1928 and 1945.

After the 2024 presidential race, during which President Joe Biden stepped down as the presumptive Democratic nominee following a disastrous debate performance that sparked widespread concerns that he was not fit to run, there was some reshuffling of the Democratic leadership on congressional committees which saw younger lawmakers take over. However, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), 35, was unsuccessful in her bid to be the ranking Democrat on the House Oversight Committee. She was bested by 74-year-old Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.)

Pod Save America co-host Dan Pfeiffer indicated that the thinking that drove some members to favor Connolly is also what was behind Democrats’ loss of the White House on November 5.

“Valuing seniority over political and messaging chops is exactly how Democrats got into this mess in the first place,” he wrote on X in mid-December.

(commondreams.org)

Time for this to be addressed……even the presidency is full of old farts with lots of backward thinking….this country needs forward thinkers not old farts grasping at the past.

Anything to add?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”