health insurance program reauthorized? this was signed into law initiated by hatch and ted kennedy. bipartisan, it helps kids who aren t poor enough to qualify for medicaid but don t have enough money to have insurance. it would seem to be a no brainer. you have bipartisan consensus that this should be reauthorized. it s just a question of the particulars, how are they going to get it done and how are they going to pay for it? when republicans in the house passed the reauthorization a few weeks ago, sent it to the senate, democrats opposed it because they opposed a measure that would have paid for some of it by increasing the rates for wealthier people who use the programs. democrats oppose that, they said there shouldn t have to be a pay for that, you know, if republicans were concerned about the deficit, they wouldn t have passed tax reform to increase the deficit. so that s really what they re quibbling over right now and trying to sort out that everyone seems to agree that this s
or medicaid expanded roles are doing just fine or are better off under obamacare, but a significant few are worse off. health premiums shot up more than expected, especially in the individual market affecting 21 million people, which, by the way, represents just 7% of americans with health insurance. an even smaller segment within the individual market, lower to middle income americans who aren t poor enough to qualify for medicaid but make too much to receive insurance subsidiaries and aren t old enough for medicare have been crushed by obamacare premiums. that doesn t make for a death spiral but it s clear this obamacare s insurance mandate isn t robust enough. the incentive for america s young and healthy to sign up and stay covered has been weak because of ever rising premiums. an estimated 2 million americans have already dropped their coverage this year alone. they have decided it s cheaper to pay $695 penalty for an individual or 2.5% of income for
middle income americans who aren t poor enough to qualify for medicaid but make too much to receive insurance subsidies and aren t old enough for medicare have been crushed by obamacare premiums. that doesn t make for a death spiral, but it s clear that obamacare s insurance mandate isn t robust enough. the incentive for america s young and healthy to sign up and stay covered has been weak because of ever rising premiums. an estimated two million americans have already dropped their coverage this year alone. they have decided it s cheaper to pay the $695 penalty for an individual or 2.5% of income for a household than to purchase health coverage. that means the risk poolment to share costs across the population has been skewed by a hire proportion of older and sick patients. add to that the secondary problem of insurers pulling out of medical exchanges in some states and you can see why republicans harp on obamacare. but what republicans don t talk about is the uncertainty they re crea