Report: Health Care Providers Could Lose $1.7 Trillion In Revenue With ACA Repeal

[DonViejo]

Source: Talking Points Memo

By ALLEGRA KIRKLAND Published JANUARY 5, 2017, 5:28 PM EDT

Health care providers face a staggering loss of revenue if Republicans repeal Obamacare as promised, according to an Urban Institute report released Thursday.

The report found that health care spending by public and private health insurers would decline by $1.7 trillion between 2019 and 2028 if the health care legislation is repealed. The Urban Institute report assumed that the Obamacare repeal measure in the new Congress will be similar to the one passed by both houses of Congress and vetoed last year by President Obama.

Like other health care policy experts, Urban Institute researchers determined Obamacare repeal would cause the private individual health insurance market to unravel as healthy people are freed of the ACA's individual mandate to obtain insurance and drop their plans, leaving a sicker pool of customers that would drive up premiums. The report predicts that repeal will create an additional 29.8 million uninsured people.

The newly uninsured will be less likely to seek medical care, according to the report, but when they do will be increasingly reliant on what’s known as uncompensated care, which is financed by government entities and providers offering free or reduced-price care. Yet federal funding for uncompensated care through Medicaid is not expected to increase substantially in the repeal bill still to be put forth by the GOP-controlled Congress. This forces providers, which will already be losing billions of dollars in revenue per year by the Urban Institute’s projections, to carry the additional financial burden of offering care to the uninsured.

Read more: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/urban-institute-health-care-providers-face-huge-revenue-loss-obamacare-repeal

[scscholar]

1. This is a good thing...

so I don't understand why we're talking about it.

[pnwmom]

4. Hospitals and other providers going bankrupt is not a good thing.

Many people live in areas where they don't have choices and losing the only hospital could be devastating to a community.

[scscholar]

18. Look at the doctor and administrator parking lots at any hospital

They're not going bankrupt when they almost all drive cars worth twice as much as a normal person makes in an entire year of working.

[pnwmom]

19. You don't know what you're talking about. Small hospitals in rural areas

have never been doing that well.

And hospitals everywhere have stopped receiving substantial Federal government payments because of the ACA. They'd been getting money to compensate them for patients who walked in the ER and couldn't pay anything. Those payments have now ended because the ACA was supposed to ensure that these patients would have insurance .

Also, as a consequence of the ACA, Medicare payments to providers were ALSO reduced.

Now the hospitals will bear the uncompensated burden of a large number of patients who can't pay their bills PLUS the Medicare cuts they agreed to in exchange for the ACA -- which the GOP won't be giving back.The GOP is going to take those "savings" and use them elsewhere.

[WyLoochka]

20. Good thing?

I want the only hospital in my small town to be there, ready to deliver full medical care services to my family and friends when needed.

In the next town, 25 miles away, the hospital is in bankruptcy, the hospice was closed, the closest skilled nursing facility is another 20 miles away.

The providers already took the reduced payment hit in the ACA, based on the trade off in the law providing for compensated care for the previously uninsured that would be covered through individual subsidies and Medicaid expansion, which this red, red, red state did not enact out of ill informed, short sighted, stubbornness.

Our local providers are teetering on the brink financially as it is. They are able to provide compensated care to individuals who obtained insurance through the subsidized ACA exchange plan, but they still treat the uninsured in the emergency room. The most expensive place to provide treatment.

Even our largest medical center in our state, 200 miles away is in dire financial straits.

By no definition would further cataclysmic cuts ensuing from the repeal of the ACA be a "good thing" here. I fear, realistically, that our hospital and the few ancillary oncology, primary care, surgical, orthopedic clinics and other providers would be forced into bankruptcy and disappear etc

[George II]

2. I've been saying since the end of the summer that the republicans won't repeal the ACA...

...without something to replace it, and something not much less than what we have now. The healthcare and pharmaceutical industries will not allow it to happen. Republicans are too beholden to them to cut off their revenue source.

Of course it would be better that nothing happens other than the ACA be enhanced, but this could put off repeal long enough for us to regroup and beat the crap out of them in 2018 and 2020.

[Initech]

13. They created Obamacare.

That's the thing they won't tell you - Obamacare is their creation. I remember when Obama first took office that he wanted a full single payer system. Instead the GOP kept whittling it down and down until we got what we have now. They just really fucking suck.

[DonCoquixote]

3. ha ha ha

Last edited Thu Jan 5, 2017, 10:13 PM - Edit history (1)

there is a very good reason to talk about this, indeed it may very well be what keeps this administration from totally killing us. Sadly I am not speaking of any great Democratic leader that will emerge from the left and finally rally the troops against the wicked mages of Wall Street, though frankly we should be able to do that, but no. What is going to go ahead and cut the throat of Republicans is the fact that Wall Street realizes that even if they go ahead and kill all the regulations, even if they lower taxes to what some cartoon Republic would be ashamed to charge, the fact is, Republicans are bad for business.

Everyone knows that if you were to go ahead and weigh a Bill Clinton wallet against either George senior or junior, the Clinton one while it would be heavier. Now it's not that Bill Clinton was genius, no he wasn't. It is the simple fact that Republicans pursue economic policies that are outright suicidal. The fact is broke people will not be able to spend, no spending means no economy. Even fast food franchises realize that if John and Jane feel that the wallet is tight they're going to hold their money, that is if any of the money actually comes down to them. So what is going to happen is quite simple, the millionaires are going to realize that billionaires have their profits in mind as well, they have them in mind for dinner! After all, once you screwed over the lives of the poor and working-class there is only one source of revenue to go to, and a lot of folks who felt very comfortable, driving their big cars, getting very nice suits are going to realize that a your friends in Wall Street had you on the menu all along! And the beauty is, the GOP can act like they were really trying to help all along, instead of just being a bunch of incompetent jackasses who billionaires could play like chest on and by billionaires yes I also include that glorified oil tycoon and Mafiosi Vladimir Putin.

So, if were saved, it will not be because all the sudden people start to grow their hearts, yes the people that were called deplorable will still want to go ahead and get what they feel is there do in the black man and women, which is nothing less than picking cotton and making sure that dinner is on the table by the time they get home lest they have to slap someone. However the deplorable are greedy cowards and once they realize that they have lost their insurance and that the banks which were scared cats before are running for the hills now even they will go ahead and do what they did when Barack Obama ran for president, they will try anything that works, like a cancer patient who finally stop smoking once they get hooked to the iron lung.

If what I say sounds cruel and sounds harsh, I am truly sorry. I have heard too much talk on the one hand with people trying to figure out how to somehow seal to people that yes are racist yes are sexist, nothing but more scared running from the Democrats who act as if common sense and decency are some sort of penance we have to do! On the other hand I hear way too many types on the other extreme with many post that end up being "F – – K the white working class. "Yes a lot of those white working class folks were willing to go to bed with a bunch of racist, to commit a sin of omission. But let's also be honest to, but DNC wing of the party had pretty much written blank checks to those people that they never intended to keep. both sides showed an American Creed: "if I can get mine, then screw you dammit!Let's face it there a lot of people in Wisconsin that would gladly enjoy seeing New York sinking the BC, especially there is money to be made. Let's face it, there are many people in New York who would gladly see Wisconsin burn, especially they could make money off. America as a whole tends to go ahead and sanctify something if it somehow can make money, which is in part a large part of the reason why Donald Trump is here among us now.

However, those who make money off of people in Wisconsin and off of people from New York realize that for all the importance of politics their importance is making money. $1 billion is nothing more than our pennies and other people's pennies gathered together, and the real chess players here know that if the GOP does not have some sort of force to keep them in check, all those stupid elephants will break the bank. They came very close under George Bush, and while they will pay think tanks to smear Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, the ugly truth is a lot of these plutocrats are going to be wishing Barack Obama was still in office especially because, sadly he was always willing to make sure that they got half a loaf, actually let's give Obama's full due, he realized that nobody was going to be getting any loaves if some private interest was going to try to sell off the bakery, kind of a way that many people in the GOP want to go ahead and sell national parks to corporations,.

so, what's the conclusion? The wall of the story is, as much as we can cajole, guilt trip and outright threatened the Democratic Party it still has many people who want to keep writing a gravy train of heavy donors. However, the fact that the GOP also needs gravy for many of those same donors will be the Achilles' heel or we can strike at them. After all the one power we have left is purchasing, and if we do not purchase things billionaires will not get the money flowing to the top. Am I talking boycott? Well, I will confess that I'm figuring that out myself like everybody else, I can tell you one thing advertises that advertising the Trump inauguration are going to be placed down on my purchasing list. For that matter cut trees that go ahead and donate to the all Ryan's of the world will wind up getting less of my money, and that says nothing about the fact that NBC is so I up on my – HIT list that I don't even watch Rachel Maddow anymore.

Oh yes, our personal power is going to be reduced, let's not make any bones about that. Already the price of gas went up about $.30 where I live which means that the grocery stores will have to charge more and everyone else will follow suit. However the good news is that the companies that need our money are going to have to fight even harder to get it, because even with monopolies and ore tricks they still have to go ahead and beg us to buy their crap. All they will try to force us in many ways, fines, monopolies, but the good news about this global world that they created, which even Donald Trump benefits from, as is the house in Russia could tell you, is the fact that yes they need our money because the billionaire fortunes that they stand on and pretend to be God's are nothing more than all our pennies put together, and frankly that is where the water, because that is all they care.


postscript: it's going to be fun if perhaps some credibility like Elizabeth Warren Manchester to help with all a left billionaire like Mark Cuban, or maybe Mr. Zuckerberg will try to do some sort of penance, considering he still seems to be waving his hands in the air going I had no idea this was going to happen! Let's face it sometimes some people who have really high IQs are capable of doing very stupid things. Normally I would not endorse any of these people for politics but frankly that the GOP wants to go ahead and turn this into a celebrity contest, with the stakes being the winner gets to pick the cabinet people who actually do set the policy, game on!

[flamingdem]

10. Well stated!

[milestogo]

5. And the real reason for wanting to repeal the ACA

is because President Obama is black and the racist republicants can't stand to see him succeed. Tell me if there is another reason.

[alfredo]

7. The 1% will have their taxes lowered.

Obama included a small tax increase for the wealthy to help pay for the ACA.

[milestogo]

9. Thousands have to go broke and die so the 1% can pay less taxes.

[not fooled]

6. Hahaha poor 'pukes

On the horns of a dilemma: which shitty master to serve--the idiot Tea Partiers who hate O-care or the souless but $$$ health ins cos who profit from it.

Poor, poor babies.

[Hortensis]

8. Physician groups, medical device makers, pharmaceuticals and

hospital corporations were all on board with the ACA. The determination of some to repeal it, the vast majority bought into office by anti-tax/anti-regulation billionaires, just illustrates how extreme and dysfunctional the Republican caucuses have become.

[LuckyLib]

15. Add to them the health insurance corps and the phone lines are burning up

to Congress as we speak!

[Hortensis]

16. Whoa! I forgot insurance companies!? Yes.

Seriously, the wealthy extremists behind repeal know both business and conservative voters want to keep the ACA. They don't care.

Of course, that's why the delay, delay, delay tactic. They plan to wait until the phone calls die off and enough voters have become resigned. And if voters turn blame their current congressmen, they'll just run new puppets against the old ones.

All this doesn't mean we won't win in the end, of course, only that the battle against these anti-government ideologues is going to go on for years. After all, we thought we'd won this one when 20M people signed up...

Just heard Senator Cornyn, who's always been determined to destroy the ACA, say they wouldn't replace it with a big, evil comprehensive bill (of course not!), but would replace it "step by step". Which step would restore the current lifetime unlimited coverage for all medical conditions, period? Not #1 or #100.

[wishstar]

11. Health care providers have expanded and built new facilities and clinics because of increased demand

Repealing ACA and reducing insurance coverage for millions of patients will cause major problems with their anticipated revenue flow that they had been counting on to pay for the expansion in facilities that has been ongoing over the past couple of years.

[roamer65]

12. When rural clinics and hospitals close, then it will hit home with the deplorables.

[airplaneman]

14. The report predicts that repeal will create an additional 29.8 million uninsured people.

I find this number extremely understated. Before the ACA there were 80 million who could not afford or who had pre-existing conditions. I think the new number will be 120 million not 29.8 million. The reason why ACA insurers are raising their rates this year (22%) is not because of increased costs (5%) Its because the ACA promised to mitigate the risk with payments. One billion was due them and congress chopped that down to 12% of what they were expecting. Once congress repeals the ACA risk will skyrocket and the insurers will take action by pulling out in every county that is a loss (AKA poor areas of america) raising rates and refusing to insure anyone who looks risky. It will be a mess.
-Airplane

[TexasBushwhacker]

17. Not to mention lost revenue from early death and disability

Healthy workers are TAXPAYERS. A person with well managed diabetes can expect and long and fairly healthy life being fully employed and paying taxes. Take away affordable healthcare and that same person could end up on SSDI or could die young leaving their dependents getting SS survivor benefits, just like Paul Ryan and his mother got. Now multiply that by a few million.