Given the sick joke of a health plan, you might ask what happened to all those proclamations
that Obamacare was a terrible, no good system that Republicans would immediately replace with something far better — not to mention Donald Trump’s promises of “insurance for everybody” and “great health care.”
But the answer, of course, is that they were all lying, all along — and they still are.
And the tax on those who don’t sign up becomes a small surcharge — paid to insurance companies,
not the public — on people who sign up after previously letting coverage lapse.
Insurers are still barred from excluding the sick, but they’re allowed to charge older Americans — who need insurance the most — much higher premiums.
Given the rhetoric Republicans have used over the past seven years to attack health reform, you might have expected them to do away
with the whole structure of the Affordable Care Act — deregulate, de-subsidize and let the magic of the free market do its thing.
A Bill So Bad It’s Awesome -
It has long been obvious to anyone following health policy that Republicans would never devise a workable replacement for Obamacare.