If you get your health care insurance at work through an employer plan, look out!
The Republican-pushed “Big Beautiful Bill” is looking pretty ugly for all working-class Americans!
HR 1, the centerpiece of Trump’s legislative program, could have you shelling out an additional $2,000 a year for a family of four, according to a report cited by the AFL-CIO this week. And when you need an emergency room, you may not be able to find one.
Republicans have promoted their plan to gut Medicaid as one that would save money for working-class taxpayers. But Federation President Liz Shuler emphasized the common interest of all working Americans – both those on Medicaid and those who access health care through plans they get from their jobs. She warned: “It’s really going to cost all of us more.”
The ugly bill would make both U.S. and foreign investors and corporations richer to the tune of nearly $4 trillion. This wealth transfer would be accomplished by way of massive tax cuts. To cover part of that tax cut, the bill would put into law $1.3 trillion in cuts for medical services.
According to the report, 179 million Americans – approximately half the nation’s population – have employment-based insurance.
“This budget reconciliation bill makes it seem like cutting Medicaid is going to save taxpayers money when it’s really going to cost all of us more – all to give tax breaks to the rich,” AFL-CIO President Shuler said in a press release Tuesday.
Increased costs to those with employer-sponsored medical insurance would come about as a result of efforts hospitals would make to compensate for revenue shortfalls. Hospitals would inevitably seek greater reimbursement from commercial insurance carriers and self-pay patients, the report predicts. Then, people with private insurance may be charged higher prices by hospitals. This would be bound to lead to increased premium costs as well as reduced benefits.
How all Americans will suffer
The Medicaid cuts will have a devastating impact on all Americans—even those with insurance—when it comes to the quality and availability of health care. Hospitals, emergency rooms, doctors’ offices, and pharmacies—which both privately insured and Medicaid recipients access – would shut down. This would make care unavailable for many families, even if they have insurance.
“Everyone, workers and patients, benefit greatly when more people are insured, not less,” Dom Shannon, a member of the National Committee of the Communist Party, told People’s World. Shannon, a nurse who works in public health in Philadelphia, explained that when people lose their insurance, they often lose access to not only life-saving preventative medicine but also primary care. This leads to patients coming in with more complex conditions and to higher patient loads at hospitals. “Workers at greedy, profit-driven hospital systems will face unfazed burnout due to inadequate staffing, and their patients who do have insurance also suffer as this decreases their quality of care,” Shannon added.
Medicaid is a major source of revenue for all hospitals. It provides 19% of their reimbursement. Hospitals would still be required to provide emergency services to the 16 million people newly lacking insurance, but without compensation. In that scenario, it is estimated that hundreds of hospitals will shut down or lose critical capacity, such as emergency rooms, mental health services, labor and delivery, and addiction treatment. The effects would be especially felt in rural and other underserved areas.
HR1’s $1.3 trillion slash in health care cited in the report would come from massive spending cuts in Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), the Affordable Care Act (ACA), and other federal programs.
Researchers at Yale and the University of Pennsylvania found that H.R.1 will result in 51,000 preventable deaths a year – 38,000 due to lack of insurance coverage and an additional 13,000 due to the repeal of nursing home staffing standards.
The analysts also predicted more than 600,000 health care jobs would be lost, plus an additional 567,000 jobs wiped out in ripple effects in local economies.
The data cited by the AFL-CIO came from a request by the Federation to industry analysts to provide an assessment of the impact of massive federal cuts on workers who currently have health care coverage through workplace plans.
Instead of achieving federal “savings” by taking health care away from 16 million working people, the Republican Congress and the Trump administration should focus on reducing the excessive prices that are rampant in our health care system, according to the AFL-CIO comments on the report. For example, the Federal Trade Commission should take urgent action to stop the profit-oriented consolidation of hospitals. Congress could pass legislation to strengthen Medicare drug price negotiation by expanding the number of drugs subject to negotiation. And excessive drug prices could be curbed for all Americans by passing legislation (S. 1186, H.R. 2554) to extend the enforcement of drug price inflation caps beyond Medicare to cover everyone.
AFL-CIO President Shuler vowed, “We’re not going to let the Republican-controlled Congress make our health care more expensive and less accessible for working people.”
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