Westbrook, MAINE — In case you missed it, former Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price has admitted that Americans will end up paying more for health insurance because of the GOP’s work to undermine the Affordable Care Act through their corporate tax cut bill. Both Republican Congressman Bruce Poliquin and Senator Susan Collins supported the bill.
President Trump’s Former Secretary of Health and Human Services, Tom Price:
“There are many, and I’m one of them, who believes ... you’ll likely have individuals who are younger and healthier not participating in that market, and consequently, that drives up the cost for other folks within that market.”
Maine Democratic Party Chairman Phil Bartlett issued the following statement in response:
“Now that Tom Price is no longer a part of the Administration, he is admitting what Democrats have been saying all along: the GOP corporate tax cut bill will directly lead to increased health care costs for Mainers.
“Congressman Poliquin knew this would happen when he voted for the bill, but he did it anyway -- because, for him, increasing health insurance premiums for hard-working Mainers was worth it to give huge tax breaks to corporations and the wealthiest.
“So, rather than being able to keep more of their hard-earned money, as the Congressman likes to say, Mainers are going to have to shell it out to pay for those higher costs. That’s not improving the lives of Mainers.
“When Mainers see their health insurance premiums go up, they know they’ll have Congressman Poliquin to thank.”
The complete Washington Post report is below:
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Trump’s former health secretary: Americans will pay more because GOP weakened Obamacare
May 1, 2018
By Jeff Stein
President Trump's former top health official on Tuesday said the Republican tax law would raise the cost of health insurance for some Americans because it repealed a core provision of the Affordable Care Act.
Tom Price, Trump's first secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, said people buying insurance on government-run marketplaces will face higher prices because the tax law repealed the Affordable Care Act's individual mandate. The mandate had forced most Americans to have health coverage or face a financial penalty.
"There are many, and I’m one of them, who believes that that actually will harm the pool in the exchange market, because you’ll likely have individuals who are younger and healthier not participating in that market, and consequently, that drives up the cost for other folks within that market," Price said at the World Health Care Conference in Washington.
Price's comments are in line with predictions from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, which in November projected 13 million fewer Americans would have health insurance by 2027 due to the elimination of the individual mandate. The CBO also said average premiums in the exchanges would increase by about 10 percent in most years over the next decade, compared with a scenario in which the mandate had been left in place.
"Those effects would occur mainly because healthier people would be less likely to obtain insurance and because, especially in the nongroup market, the resulting increases in premiums would cause more people to not purchase insurance," the CBO said at the time.
Democrats cited the CBO's projections in making their case against the tax law last fall, and they quickly seized on Price's remarks Tuesday. Republicans, including Price, have long maintained that the mandate represented a burden on taxpayers that forced them into coverage they did not want or need.
“The individual mandate is one of those things that is actually driving up the cost for the American people in terms of coverage,” Price said on ABC’s This Week last summer. “So, what we’re trying to do is make it so that Obamacare is no longer harming the patients of this land – no longer driving up costs, no longer making it so that they’ve got coverage but no care.”
Price left the position last September after Politico reported on his use of taxpayer-funded charter flights. His comments were first reported by The Washington Times.
Price's comments follow a recent criticism of the tax law from Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), who told the Economist he was unconvinced the law's corporate cuts would significantly raise wages for American workers. During the debate over the law, White House officials repeatedly said the corporate cuts will increase average wages by $4,000 per worker.
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