The Affordable Care Act prohibits insurance companies from denying people coverage or charging higher premiums based on preexisting conditions, and provides subsidies to help low income families afford healthcare coverage.
The Affordable Care Act includes new approaches to lower costs and improve quality, such as cutting hospital payments, expanding Medicaid eligibility and piloting innovative payment and delivery models.
How is the affordable care act funded?
Federal funding provides premium tax credits and cost-sharing reductions for Californians who purchase health coverage via Covered California.
Through the Congressional budget reconciliation process, a simple majority in both chambers can limit debate and pass legislation repealing provisions of the Affordable Care Act that have direct impacts on federal budget. Full repeal cannot occur without increasing deficit levels further.
Republican health policy reform proposals often propose using alternative health care tax credits to replace the Affordable Care Act’s premium subsidies and cost-sharing reductions, although their sizes and structures vary significantly from those found under Obamacare. Some may be advanceable and refundable while others aren’t – something you should always bear in mind when making health policy reform proposals.
Some replacement proposals would reestablish federal funding for high-risk pools to assist individuals with expensive preexisting medical conditions obtain coverage. While such pools typically incur much higher costs than comprehensive plans due to high annual deductibles and costs related to claims management services, such as claim administration. As a result, this could increase monthly premium costs when buying comprehensive policies.
Taxes
Republicans strongly dislike Obamacare because of the taxes it imposes, particularly those that fall on families making less than $250,000 annually and help cover its new benefits. While Republicans dislike its individual mandate, which must still go ahead for this law to operate properly.
These taxes help subsidize the costs of healthcare for low-income Americans and reduce uncompensated care for those with extremely high medical bills, as well as discouraging companies from dropping coverage entirely in favor of paying lower taxes for employees.
Republicans generally dislike the Affordable Care Act’s higher taxes, even if they do not explicitly name them when discussing repeal of it. If another plan were created that included these taxes after its replacement was instated, however, many voters may view that as unexpected and surprise them by its absence.
Funding
An important goal of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is to make health insurance affordable for individuals earning up to 400% of poverty line, by giving households tax credits that cover some or all of their insurance costs.
The Affordable Care Act also mandates large employers to offer insurance or pay a shared-responsibility payment, while individuals must obtain health coverage or face a financial penalty.
Republican opposition to the Affordable Care Act stems from its ability to restrict their ability to profit in the health care industry and mandates that insurance companies dedicate 85 percent of their earnings towards actual medical care rather than administrative costs or shareholder bonuses. Republicans find these restrictions on profitability unwarranted as it violates their belief that businesses should be free to operate themselves and maximize returns for investors; hence their 60+ attempts since its passage to repeal it.
Why do republicans despise it?
The Affordable Care Act (ACA), passed on March 23, 2010 and implemented fully as of January 1, 2014, mandates employers provide health insurance or pay a penalty, creates state or multistate-based exchanges to enable individuals and small businesses to purchase coverage, expand Medicaid coverage to low-income Americans, prohibit lifetime and annual limits on coverage as well as prevent insurers from denying preexisting conditions coverage; it allows young adults to remain under their parent’s coverage until age 26; prevents insurers from denying coverage due to preexisting conditions while allowing young adults can remain under their parent’s insurance until age 26.
The Affordable Care Act also establishes cost-sharing reductions to lower out-of-pocket expenses for low-income beneficiaries and reduced Medicare Advantage reimbursement rates, leading to reduced access in many regions. Furthermore, the ACA limits catastrophic coverage – which provides only limited protection – and restricts health savings accounts – both of which have caused many Republicans to oppose its provisions.
