Trumpcare: Good or Bad

Andrea Garcia, Reporter

For President Donald Trump’s first 100 days, he said he would put an end to Obamacare. The House of Representatives voted to get rid of Obamacare and replace it with Donald Trump’s AHCA or American Healthcare Association. Now we are just waiting to see if it passes the Senate and if Trump decides to pass or veto the bill.  Even if the bill passes, those who have Obamacare can keep its policies and coverage until the end of 2017.

“It’s not right. I think they should keep Obamacare,” said senior Leo Gonzalez.

Trumpcare is going to require everyone to have coverage and if they fail to pay, they will have to pay 30% more than they originally began paying, according to Trumpcare.com a website sponsored by HealthNetwork Group, a consumer focused for-profit healthcare marketing company.

But according to a fox6now.com report from Meg Wagner, “House Republicans’ plan to repeal and replace Obamacare will nearly double the amount of uninsured Americans over the next decade.”

With Obamacare, all people with pre-existing conditions couldn’t be denied health care or charged more, but if the new Trumpcare passes, states have the right to choose if they want to charge those with pre-existing conditions more than those without them, according to Trumpcare.com.

Under Obamacare, carriers were not permitted to charge older people more than three times as much as a younger people but under Trumpcare, older people can be charged five times as much as those who are younger.  

“I don’t think we should adopt Trumpcare because we shouldn’t charge elders more because they have already worked their whole life and have paid for healthcare their whole life. They shouldn’t have to pay more than they have to just because of their age, ” said senior Jagdeep Singh.

Despite all this, Trumpcare may allow people to deduct the full cost of their health insurance premiums from their federal tax returns each year. Obamacare only lets people whose costs exceed 10 percent of the household’s adjusted gross income deduct from their federal tax returns.

Trump’s plan would cause almost 21 million people to lose their insurance coverage,” says Trumpcare.com. “Part of the replacement health care plan would be to allow people to deduct health insurance premiums at tax time, to sign up for tax-free Health Savings Accounts (HSA) which are meant to accumulate to cover medical expenses, and have high-deductible plans instead. This would cover five percent of the 21 million individuals who would lose coverage upon the repeal of Obamacare and almost double the number of Americans without health insurance.”

Trumpcare.com compares Obamacare and Trumpcare in an easy to read chart that you can find here https://trumpcare.com/trumpcare-vs-obamacare/.