Stephen Lendman

Marketplace medicine based on the ability to pay puts profits over fundamental human needs and rights.

Trumpcare’s original and reported new versions are abominations, each making a bad system worse, the new proposal more unacceptable than the initial one - both leaving millions uninsured, millions more way uninsured, mostly poor and low income households.

On April 17, the Washington Post cited Economist/YouGov and Morning Consult/Politico polls, showing most Americans support universal single-payer healthcare coverage, including Republicans - Medicare for all.

Nothing else is equitable. America has the world’s most expensive healthcare system - costing double what other developed countries provide their citizens.

Trumpcare works great for America’s privileged class, dismally for most others. According to the Huffington Post, House “GOP moderates and conservatives are nearing a deal” to replace Obamacare.

It lets states “get waivers, eliminating the so-called community rating provision - the rule that prohibits insurers from charging higher premiums to people with pre-existing conditions.”

“In order to obtain the waiver, states would have to participate in a federal high-risk pool or establish their own, and satisfy some other conditions.”

“In exchange for that conservative concession, the amendment would reinstate the Essential Health Benefits that were already taken out of the bill - though, again, states could waive those provisions as well if they were able to show that doing so would lower premiums, increase the number of people insured, or ‘advance another benefit to the public interest in the state.’ “

House and Senate leaders are reviewing the proposal. It’s far from a done deal. Democrats and most moderate Republicans may reject it.

It reneges on Trump’s promise to provide affordable coverage for everyone, including for individuals with pre-existing conditions. Insurers will be able to deny coverage by making it unaffordable for most sick Americans.

According Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation senior vice president Larry Levitt, Trumpcare 2.0 lets “states…eliminate the ACA’s guarantee of access to insurance at a reasonable price for people with pre-existing conditions, in the interest of lowering premiums for people who are healthy.”

It “tilts heavily towards what” hardline anti-populist Freedom Caucus extremists want, not what consumers vitally need.

It makes healthcare more of a commodity than already - based on the ability to pay or get shut out or left with woefully inadequate coverage, especially for costly illnesses, diseases and injuries.

Trump wants a deal before completing his first 100 days in office - no matter how unacceptable it is for most Americans.

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Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

His new book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III."

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at http://www.sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network.