Healthcare impacts every single American citizen whether you are wealthy or not, and is currently center stage for a heated debate between the two parties. Making healthcare equally accessible to everyone is a fundamental key in keeping the United States of America the liberated country that it is. Questions may arise like, Should Every Person have health insurance? Due to the fact that human beings as a species are known to make mistakes and no one is perfect, many would say yes. This papers goal is to examine all sides in the argument on healthcare in this country and look at how each entity views, would fund, make available, and/or replace Obamacare.
How do the republicans view Obamacare? Republicans have been trying to get rid of Obamacare ever since it was first implemented in 2010. Republicans believe Obamacare is destroying the United States economy, and believe that it violates the Constitution. They argue that the government should not be allowed to force citizens to spend large amount of money on anything that they do not want, and that doing so may lead to the crash of the economy. (Roy, 2018)
How is obamacare funded? The Democrats often say things such as “We can and Will use the Treasury to pay for things that congress itself already authorized” (Carney, 2013) The Republican’s issue with this is that the 113th congress is under no obligation to fund what the 111th congress passed. Instead republicans wish to be able to choose their own health insurance plan and pay for it themselves however they wish.
How do the Republicans plan to replace Obamacare? The GOP wishes to provide refundable tax credits to Obamacare's Subsides. Obamacare's subsidies are based off a person's income, where the republicans would tie tax credits to a person's age and family size. Republicans are also seeking to put the insurance plan “On a budget”, meaning each state can individually decide how they want to provide healthcare to their citizens (Fahrenthold 2015).
The availability of the new Republican plan?. The new plan in the making does not yet specify the size of the credits, so it is hard to predict how much it will help lower people's premiums. Past republicans have offered up to three thousand dollars in credits, but experts have said that this would not be enough to make coverage affordable for many people. (Fahrentohold 2015).
How do the Democrats view obamacare? Democrats, just like the republican party, aren't all in unison and differ in opinion even on issues like healthcare. “In some cases Democrats have tacked to left, unafraid to adopt progressive ideas like universal health care or "Medicare for all." Others playing it safer are focused on saving the most popular parts of the Affordable Care Act, namely protections for people with preexisting conditions.” (Itkowitz 2018). As this quote clearly shows, healthcare is complicated. On one side you have people who want Universal coverage, Which would change obamacare quite a bit, and you have people who just want to tweak obamacare.
How would the Democrats fund obamacare? “Obamacare was devised with a mix of new spending and taxes, along with cuts to the federal Medicare program, so that it would save more than it cost. A recent forecast from the Congressional Budget Office estimates that, if left in place, the Affordable Care Act will continue to save federal dollars through at least 2025. (Recent legislation has made some small changes to the law’s tax provisions, but analysts at the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget ran the numbers again and found very little difference.)” (Katz 2017) Obamacare also taxes higher income earners in order to be able to subsidize healthcare for the lower income citizens. Some Democrats agree with the current system and others want to do away with it. Many Democrats that were running for the office of United States Senator are using healthcare as part of their party base to help them get elected. “Even in Texas, a state suddenly within reach for Democrats, Senate candidate Beto O'Rourke (D) is running on affordable health care” (Itkowitz 2018).
How available is obamacare? The Availability of obama care does not require fixing in the eyes of the Democrats. Obama care was widely successful at giving people who were in dire need of healthcare a way to get into emergency rooms. By subsidizing the lower income families with funds, The democrats successfully increased availability even to the low income person(s).
What to the Democrats want to tweak about Obamacare? The Affordable Care Act is, “The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act(PPACA) – also known as the Affordable Care Act or ACA, and generally referred to as Obamacare – is the landmark health reform legislation passed by the 111th Congress and signed into law by President Barack Obama in March 2010.The law provides consumers with subsidies (“premium tax credits”) that lower costs for households with incomes between 100% and 400% of the federal poverty level.”(Healthcare.Gov) Obamacare and the affordable care act are often called the same thing but even though they are, there is a lot of writing and legislature within both of these entities. Obamacare and the Affordable Care act can be confusing at times. The Democrat party wants to focus on changing that. The Democrat party aims to make it easy to understand and easy to select the healthcare you would want not unlike how amazon runs its business.
What is the presidential stance on Obamacare? Trump and the republicans battled 2016s election with the promise to get rid of Obamacare. Trump Said, “If Obamacare is hurting people, and it is why should it not also hurt the insurance companies and why should congress not be paing what the public pays?”
What would Trump Replace obamacare with? Trump Would like to replace it with Trumpcare. Trumpcare includes Refundable tax credits. These tax credits would be introduced to help people purchase health care if they did not already have access to it through their employer. There would be no limit on healthcare saving and Americans would not be forced to have insurance. Likewise, Larger companies and employers would not be forced to cover all of their employees.
Donald Trump has currently been unable to introduce a new healthcare law to replace obamacare as of his last attempt in 2017. Instead, Trump has been doing everything in his power to hurt obamacare and make it a broken law. They plan to continue slashing budgets that were for advertisements and other activities that promote obamacare and the ACA enlistment.
One major concern for the president is the Illegal immigrants. It is not ideal to have United States citizens paying for the illegal immigrants that come across the United States Borders and take advantage of the healthcare system. Although it is illegal for the illegal immigrants to get basic medicaid coverage, they still have access to emergency medicaid coverage which includes expensive surgeries and childbirth. In the eyes of President Donald Trump, this is unfair to the American people.
In conclusion, based on evidence from from both sides, I personally agree with the Democrats because I believe they have the most logical way of thinking and are more realistic with their plans for the future. The fact that Republicans could not pass the bill in 2017 when they had the house and senate majority, leaves very little hope for them passing anything now. Instead, I believe the less radical Democrats are our best bet for logical healthcare reform.
Works Cited
Affordable Care Act (ACA) – HealthCare.gov Glossary. (n.d.). Retrieved from
https://www.healthcare.gov/glossary/affordable-care-act/
Carney, B. M. (2013, Oct 03) On funding obamacare. Wall Street Journal (online)
Retrieved from https://manowar.tamucc.edu/login?url=https://search.proquest.com/docview/1439112100?accountid=7084
Itkowitz, C. (2018, September 20). The Health 202: In Senate battle, Democrats' focus on
health care is giving them an edge. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/the-health-202/2018/09/20/the-health-202-in-senate-battle-democrats-focus-on-health-care-is-giving-them-an-edge/5ba2826c1b326b47ec959704/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.7d307f2c0efd
Sanger-katz, M. (2017, February 05). Grading Obamacare: Successes, Failures and
'Incompletes'. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/05/upshot/grading-obamacare-successes-failures-and-incompletes.html
Roy, A (2018, January 03). Republicans Can’t Avoid ObamaCare in 2018. Retrieved
from https://www.wsj.com/articles/republicans-cant-avoid-obamacare-in-2018-151493806