Though most old and sick people will be worse off under the GOP bill, it might be a boon—real or perceived—for people earning just above the Obamacare subsidy cutoff.
House Republicans unveiled Monday the American Health Care Act, their long-promised plan to replace Obamacare. The bill is similar to, and arguably more generous than, a draft that leaked a few weeks ago, and conservative members are already denouncing it as “Obamacare Lite.”
- Keeps the extremely popular provisions barring insurance companies from discriminating against people because of their preexisting conditions and forces them to continue allowing young adults to stay on their parents’ plans until they’re 26
- Does away with the much-loathed individual mandate
- Keeps Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion until 2020
- Contains tax credits
It’s this last point that will determine whether people on the individual market are richer or poorer under Ryan/Trump/PriceCare than Obamacare. Unlike Obamacare, which determined subsidies for insurance by income, the new plan would weight the tax credits by age and then phase them out in increments by income.