The GOP’s Attacks on the Poor Are About to Get Stealthier
“But meanwhile, the actual fight over Obamacare—the only health-care access that millions of people have right now—is regulatory, not legislative. I’ve written many times that the Affordable Care Act is best understood as an antipoverty program. In addition to providing tax credits to cover premiums and expanding Medicaid eligibility, thus growing that program by an estimated 11.2 million people, the ACA offers an indirect cash subsidy to 7.1 million people, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. About 58 percent of those who have chosen a plan through the ACA marketplace this year will receive a discount on cost-sharing, such as deductibles and co-pays. These subsidies, offered by insurers but financed by federal dollars, go to people making under 250 percent of the current poverty level. Despite our political obsession with the higher-income people in the individual-insurance market, such low-income households constitute the vast majority of Obamacare enrollees. This is precisely why Ryan and his ilk can’t tolerate the law: They rightly see it as an expansion of the Great Society they are dedicated to dismantling.”