Suitorman, Senior Editor at reason magazine. Kasie, let me start with you. Weve already seen far right groups like Heritage Action criticize the plan, Club For Growth as well, freedom works, rand paul calling it obamacare light. You tweeted this a few hours ago. Here it is, it is still early so caveats apply but events of today suggest Gop Health Care bill is already on life support, if not Dead On Arrival. How can that be so early, kasie . Reporter well look, craig, this bill has run into extraordinary opposition just in the first handful of hours that it has been out in the public, and youre saying you tick through some of the groups that have come out and opposed this, the Heritage Action went so far as to say this doesnt repeal obamacare. That of course kind of the cardinal sin for a party that has spent the last however many years campaigning specifically on repealing obamacare. So the people who are
to younger people and less generous to older people. There would be a cap so that
benefit for buying health coverage. those folks that are out there in the individual small group market know tax benefit and that s what this plan would do. state flexibility it s incredibly important that we allow the states to be the ones that are defining what health coverage, have the flexibility in the medicaid program to be able to respond to their vulnerable population. lawsuit abuse, the president mentioned and it s incredibly important the practice of defensive medicine wastes billions of dollars every single year and we need to address that as well. president talked about a glide path and appropriate transition to this new phase for health care for our country, and that s important as well. so that nobody falls through the cracks. buying insurance across state lines. the. the talked about this on the campaign over and over. american people understand the common sense nature of purchasing across state lines, and it increases competition and we need to make certain that that ha
other than there won t be a penalty for not purchasing coverage. for the folks in the medicare system there will be no changes at all in the current law. but we re talking about those people in the individual and small group market, the moms and pops, the folks who run the corner grocery store, the corner cleaners, those individuals out there are having huge challenges gaining care and gaining coverage, and medicaid is a program that by and large has decreased the ability for folks to gain access to care and we want to make certain we address that. this is about patience. this is n aboutmoney. this is not about something this is about patience, and sadly, the costs are going up for those folks and the individual in small group market, the access is going down and only getting worse. you know the stories. premiums increased 25% over the last year on average. arizona had an increase of 116%. deductibles are going up for many, many folks, if you re a mom or a dad out there, and you
premium on top of your health insurance premium if you let coverage lapse. if you don t buy new coverage because ir not feeling very flush or don t think you re going to get sick and try to buy it again, 30% more expensive. that s meant to have people stay in insurance and make that pool bigger. what s not in there? the employer mandate and individual mandate. no one is forced to buy insurance for themselves or their employees. government subsidies to pay for insurance we re getting refundable tax credits to everyone and selling insurance across state lines was supposed to be in here donald trump tweeted that s going to come in a later phase. here are the losers as we look at it, the elderly, because they re not getting enough of a tax credit, the poor because of those changes to medicaid, and the sick who always get the short end of the stick. winners right now are the young, because they get this great subsidy and generally healthy, wealthy people who are seeing their taxes go down a
doctors are making these decisions. cvs score isn t out yet, can you guarantee that this plan will not have a marginally negative impact on the deficit or result in millions of americans losing insurance? what i can say the goal and the desire i know of the individuals on the hill is to make sure that this does not increase the cost to the government. two elements of the bill, i have questions about how they control costs and how they help with access. the medicaid per capita block grant to the states, how is that sort of fundally different from the obamacare regime on medicaid in terms of expanding access. the second point, why doesn t thisill do away with the cost sharing community ratings version that obamacare has. to the per capita cap, the medicaid is a system that doesn t work for patients. you have got folks out there who need care, who need to see particular physician who is