New Texas Trumpcare Health Insurance – The Amazing Truth Revealed for the First Time!

New Administration, New Approach to Problem Solving

It is typical for the President in office to sign an executive order to freeze previous administration’s programs that are in progress. This allows them to quickly move in the direction of the new administration’s goals.

On May 7^th, 2017, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the American Health Care Act (AHCA), now popularly known as Trumpcare or the Trump Healthcare Plan 2017. This impacted aspects of execution of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) passed by the previous president Barak Obama. ACA is commonly known as Obamacare.

Trumpcare Explained

Given insurance coverage for Americans is a critical topic, and the changes that Trumpcare would make to the existing setup impact almost every American, we have summarized the changes for you below concerning Trumpcare facts:

· Individual MandateEliminated

The ACA mandated that every American needs to buy insurance or pay the individually-shared responsibility penalty. This mandate came into effect in 2014 and restricted the insurance companies to alter the insurance rates derived from on the current health of the individual when buying a plan.

Trumpcare repeals the individual mandate and instead allows insurance companies to charge a 30% penalty if a person buys insurance after a gap of no coverage for more than 63 days. This incentivizes people to buy insurance rather than setting up a mandate to buy one.

It is worth noting that the Trumpcare repeal of individual mandate does not take effect until 2019. This means individual mandate continues to be in effect until the end of 2018, and not having health insurance may attract steep fines.

· Tax Credits Replace Income-based Subsidies

Obamacare provides subsidies for qualifying low and middle-income individuals to pay their insurance premiums. For eligible Americans whose benchmark plan costs more than a certain percentage of their total annual income, Obamacare gives subsidies on the difference amount.

The Trumpcare bill, on the other hand, provides subsidies based on age, instead of income like Obamacare does, with an increase of $500 with every age bracket. People over 60 get $4,000 tax credits.

Under Trumpcare, the elderly will have higher starting premiums and so will have to pay higher premiums. On the other hand, younger people who live in low-cost areas but are in the high-income bracket will pay low premiums given they would have lower starting premiums in general.

Click here for interactive maps that show the difference in premium payments under Obamacare and Trumpcare by state.

· States Can Change ‘Essential Health Benefits’ by Obtaining Waivers

Obamacare federally imposed a set of minimum benefits that all health insurance policies should cover. These essential benefits include the following 10 categories:

Outpatient services (also called the Ambulatory patient services)
Emergency services
Hospitalization
Maternity and newborn care
Substance use disorder services, mental health services, and behavioral health services
Prescription drugs
Rehabilitation services
Laboratory services
Preventive and wellness services which includes chronic disease management
Oral care, vision care, and pediatric services

Trumpcare removes the mandate for the insurance companies to comply with these essential health benefits coverages. Instead of prescribing a list of mandatory services, Trumpcare attempts to reduce health care costs by allowing states to define their own minimum benefits.

· Allows Insurers to Charge More for Pre-existing conditions

A pre-existing condition is a medical state of health where a person was diagnosed with before buying an insurance policy.

Obamacare allowed people with pre-existing conditions to buy medical insurance without underwriting. It also ensured that they can’t be denied insurance coverage, and were protected from being charged more by the insurers.

One way this was misused was that people violated individual mandates as paying fines was cheaper than paying a regular insurance premium. When there was a need for medical insurance cover, the provision for pre-existing conditions allowed them to buy insurance after being diagnosed by a medical condition at affordable costs.

Trumpcare takes a different approach to pre-existing conditions. It provides for waivers that can allow insurers to charge more for pre-existing conditions. Given that only when there is a gap of no coverage this higher charge for pre-existing conditions applies, it further encourages continuous coverage.

· Obamacare Medicaid Expansion Rolled Back

Medicaid is a joint venture of federal and state governments to make provisions for medical costs cover for people with limited income (at or below 138 percent of poverty).

Obamacare has a provision that calls for expansion of Medicaid eligibility bringing more low-income people under coverage. Under Obamacare, the federal government bears most of the cost of Medicaid with a small portion being contributed to by the participating states.

Changes under Trumpcare for Medicaid expansion are based on a long history of Republican opposition of Medicaid expansion. Trumpcare allows people with existing Medicaid coverage to keep it. However, starting in 2020 there will be a freeze in future enrolments. At that point, states won’t be getting any funding from the federal government to support new signups.

Another significant change is that under Obamacare, states had the freedom to choose how much they would spend for qualified benefits and the federal government is obliged to match the state expenditure at the state-matched rate. Trumpcare will be changing this by enforcing a cap on state spending and also creating defined categories for the expenditure.

· Changes to Health Savings Account (HSA)

HSA is a medical savings account that provides federal tax benefits for people who are eligible and want to contribute to it.

Under Obamacare, the cap for individual investments in HSA is $3,400 and cap for families is $6,750. Trumpcare increases the cap to $6,550 for individuals and $13,100 for families.

· Elimination of Obamacare Consumer Taxes

There is a list of consumer taxes that were included in funding for the costs of Obamacare, – Health savings accounts tax, indoor tanning tax, high bills tax, tax on several prescription drugs, high-risk tax, etc. Trumpcare eliminates all of these taxes.

Changes Can Affect You

Given the changes to health care in Trumpcare vs Obamacare impacts every American, it is essential gain a better understanding about how all of this affects you individually. If you are keen to evaluate what actions you need to take and are looking for expert advice to assess your specific case, feel free to give us a call and one of our expert agents would be only too pleased to walk you through the details.