As the Senate prepares for a vote on a Democratic proposal to extend Affordable Care Act (ACA) tax credits, debate has intensified over competing health care legislation. The Democratic measure aims to prevent an average doubling of premiums for more than 20 million Americans. In contrast, Republican Senators Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and Mike Crapo of Idaho have introduced a bill that would eliminate these tax credits and instead provide fixed checks to individuals.
The Cassidy-Crapo proposal offers $1,000 checks for younger adults and $1,500 for older adults. However, recipients would be required to switch from higher-quality gold or silver insurance plans to bronze or catastrophic plans. These lower-tier plans carry significantly higher deductibles—$7,500 and $10,000 for individuals and up to $21,200 per household.
Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, the Ranking Member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, released a report titled “More Costs, Less Care: The Republican ‘Plans’ for Health Care.” The report analyzes the potential effects of the Cassidy-Crapo bill and other Republican proposals on health care costs.
According to findings in Sanders’ report:
- A 62-year-old couple in Miami earning $85,000 annually could see their premiums increase by $21,654 per year with deductibles rising from zero to $7,700.
- A family of four in Kansas making $45,000 could pay an additional $4,500 out-of-pocket for surgery following a heart attack compared with current law.
- A 46-year-old resident of New Orleans earning $32,000 might face an extra $2,560 in costs for breast cancer treatment and premiums.
Sanders criticized the legislation: “The legislation put forward by Senators Cassidy and Crapo would make an already broken and outrageously expensive health care system even worse. It would do nothing to prevent premiums from doubling, tripling or even quadrupling for millions of Americans. It would do nothing to lower the outrageous cost of health care or prescription drugs. It would do nothing to make it easier for Americans to see a doctor when they get sick. Instead, the Cassidy-Crapo bill would give some people a check of $1,000 or $1,500 if they switched to a health insurance plan with outrageously high deductibles. How is giving someone who has cancer a check for $1,000 or $1,500 going to help them when their deductible is $7,500 or $10,000? The Cassidy-Crapo bill would lead to more medical bankruptcies, more unaffordable care and more Americans going without the health care they desperately need. That would be absolutely unacceptable.”
He added: “This week, the Senate must extend the ACA tax credits to prevent premiums from doubling for over 20 million Americans. But that is not all we must do. We cannot remain the only major country not to guarantee health care as a human right. The function of a rational health care system must be to make people well, not to make the wealthy stockholders of big drug and insurance companies even richer.”
The full report can be accessed online.
