The ACA worked, so Wittman broke it (Part 2)
Skyrocketing healthcare costs are the direct result of the scheme to ruin the ACA
Welcome to the Wittman Watch newsletter!
This is the second half of a 2-part article. Find Part 1 here.
The story of how an effective program was deliberately undermined (Part 2)
Have you read Part 1?
Breaking Update: On January 15th, the Trump administration announced The Great Healthcare Plan, their latest stab at addressing healthcare affordability. It demonstrates precisely what Parts 1 and 2 of our analysis describe: that their “reforms” aim to return US healthcare to pre-ACA conditions, and fail to address Americans’ core concerns of affordability and quality.
For example, in Part 1 we explained that Trump cut CSR payments in 2018, causing a 36% increase in Silver plan premiums and an extra $2.3B cost to taxpayers. The newly announced plan restores the CSR payments Trump himself eliminated — and doing so now will increase premiums for everyone. This isn’t governing; it’s chaos.
Republicans made your premiums more expensive, and now claim they want to “solve it”
Republicans bet that over time, voters would forget that the ACA used to work and could be persuaded that it was actually bad. Some voters — like the commenter in our social feed — were fooled by this scheme. The message Wittman sent on December 4th is the beginning of the next phase of the scheme: in the name of “reform,” enact into law various mechanisms that revert US healthcare to how it was before the ACA, and virtually guarantee worse coverage and higher costs for everyone who relies on it.
The reality is that Wittman’s “solutions” only address symptoms of his party’s interference and calculated undermining of the ACA, not the root causes of spiraling healthcare costs and unequal access. He suggests short-term insurance plans and association health plans. These types of plans evade ACA consumer protections and cherry-pick healthy enrollees. That then raises premiums for everyone with comprehensive health insurance plans by 2-3%.
Wittman promotes Direct Primary Care, and this has cost-saving potential for employers. But the unemployed or those unable to afford membership fees are left out in the cold. His suggested Health Reimbursement Arrangements (HRAs) mainly benefit higher-income individuals and do not move with employees when they leave their jobs. So these proposals are more about delivering benefits for the wealthy while making everyone else’s life harder.
One of the most positive changes under the ACA is that insurers have to insure everyone, including people with pre-existing conditions. Previously, an insurer could deny a person coverage based on their medical history. Someone who’d had cancer, for example, might be considered to be too costly for the insurer, so insurers would simply refuse to cover them, or increase the cost of coverage to unaffordable levels. This allowed the insurers to pick and choose their clients, and left too many people without any healthcare coverage at all. The ACA made this illegal — everyone must be able to obtain coverage. In the options presented by Wittman and other Republicans, insurers can once again refuse coverage based on pre-existing conditions. This would be an enormous reversal of a key benefit of the ACA, and throw millions off of their healthcare coverage entirely.
What Wittman proposes would fragment risk pools, restrict access for those with pre-existing conditions, and leave millions of people uninsured. These options are market-based approaches that demonstrably failed before the ACA, and definitely will not expand coverage or significantly reduce costs now.
Wittman’s message post is a great example of how Congressional Republicans create problems and then demand “reform” to fix the problems they created… and the “reforms” often make the problems even worse.
Wittman and Trump sabotaged the ACA to create the problems they are now using to justify further enriching their friends and expanding insurance companies’ profits, while not actually solving the problems at all. Do NOT be fooled! Wittman is deceiving you. It’s not the first time and it won’t be the last.
There are sincere attempts to improve the ACA
Setting aside Republican machinations to destroy the ACA, it’s clear that changes are needed to give more Americans access to higher quality, lower cost healthcare. Trump and the Republican Party have been promising healthcare reform for about 15 years now. Wittman’s YouTube playlist on Healthcare Reform mostly consists of videos from 15+ years ago — and in 16 years, his total YouTube video output on healthcare clocks in at just 10 minutes! He and his party are simply not serious about truly reforming healthcare. Nothing of substance has ever come from them (remember Trump’s “concept of a plan”?), while they continue to attack the system that people are actually relying on for healthcare right now. That’s simply negligence, and everyone should be furious about it.
But there are proposals for what could be improved:
State Public Option Act (S. 2073)
…and more appear every month
We have opinions on all these proposals (we don’t love AHPs, for example), and maybe you do too. The current administration should be bolstering the system that exists while at the same time pressing for fundamental reforms that will guarantee coverage for everyone — shouldn’t it? So far Wittman has offered only lip service and, we note, none of these proposed pieces of legislation arises from him.
Now you know: You can stop hating on the ACA
If you’re among the many people who thought the ACA was a mess — and who voted for Wittman and people like him in the hopes that they would fix it — please know this: people you trusted lied to you. You’re a victim of a deliberate scheme. There’s a good chance you’re paying a lot more for health insurance yourself. Maybe someone in your family is sick and can’t get help. Your motivations and circumstances are real and legitimate.
But now that you know, you have the power to see through the deceits and lies, and choose a representative who will work for your best interests. November is coming! 💪
What do you think about the ACA, the current fight over healthcare, and Wittman’s actions around it? Comment here or on Facebook, Instagram, BlueSky, or Reddit.
That’s a wrap
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This November, we’ll make sure our seat is filled by someone who’ll work for us.