In his weekly radio address, Trump attacked the Affordable Care Act and mentioned an autism family whose premiums had gone up. What he did not mention is that Trumpcare would hurt people with autism.
- The Medicaid cuts would hit millions of kids with disabilities such as autism.
- The cuts would cause states to scrap home and community-based services, notwithstanding a sham "demonstration project" in the bill.
- A new provision would cause premiums to soar for people in the individual market with preexisting conditions such as autism. A letter from America's Health Insurance Plans and the Blue Cross/Blue Shield Association explains:
The Consumer Freedom Option allows insurers to sell products that must comply with all rules in current law alongside plans that do not comply with current insurance reforms – meaning they are allowed to refuse offering coverage to certain people, charge different rates based on age and gender, and not provide comprehensive health benefits. This would allow the new plans to “cherry pick” only healthy people from the existing market making coverage unaffordable for the millions of people who need or want
comprehensive coverage, including, for example, coverage for prescription drugs and
mental health services.
...
As healthy people move to the less-regulated plans, those with significant medical needs
will have no choice but to stay in the comprehensive plans, and premiums will skyrocket
for people with preexisting conditions. This would especially impact middle-income families that that are not eligible for a tax credit. Taxpayers will pay more to finance
federal tax credits for the individuals in comprehensive plans and these costs will continue to increase, even with dedicated funding. Risk adjustment is also critical to making the individual market sustainable, but can only work when there are uniform
benefit requirements across the market.
