…which is why tax credits need to be beefed up to cover the bulk of the increase. Alternately, we could impose price controls on doctors, hospitals, drug cos, device makers etc. Take your pick. What ISN’T an option anymore is “keeping costs down” by kicking the sick to the curb.
If you want to *significantly* cut down on how much *patients* pay for healthcare (beyond nibbling around the edges via “increased efficiency’ & the like), there’s really only 3 ways to do it:
—Throw the sick under the bus
—Reduce how much providers receive
—Increase tax funding
—Throw the sick under the bus
—Reduce how much providers receive
—Increase tax funding
Last year there was a HUGE national battle over option 1 (guaranteed issue, community rating, essential health benefits, etc). The GOP lost that battle: Societally, we’ve decided that we can no longer “keep costs low” by telling folks w/expensive conditions “tough shit”.
OK, *IF* that’s the case, all those cancer patients/etc are gonna need a ton of expensive care. That means someone has to pay for it. That means you have to either *lower* how much that care costs at the tail end (docs/hospitals/drug cos/etc) *or* the gov’t has to step in more.
So far few in either party seem to be willing to address the *end cost* much, so that leaves beefing up tax subsidies one way or another—via “risk corridors”, “reinsurance”, raising the 400% APTC cap, increasing CSR funding, etc etc. It still comes down to ⬆️ tax funding.
But really, the biggest flaw of the ACA’s structure was that the subsidy formula simply wasn’t quite generous ENOUGH. Believe it or not, yes, “throw more money at it” *is* the best solution sometimes.
If I’m building a house with a budget of $100K and I get it 90% complete but then run out of money, the best solution isn’t to tear down the rest of the house, it’s to come up with the rest of the money.
There are plenty of other flaws with it as well, and not all of them are due to GOP sabotage, I admit (the family glitch, the skinny plan glitch, etc)…but you guys won’t even agree to fix THOSE, so forgive me if I don’t take your Deep Concerns seriously. /end
