A tough election coming up but being in healthcare, one of the biggest issues is how will the new President change healthcare.
Becker’s Healthcare provides an overview of Rand studies of what each candidate is proposing and a breakdown of how their policies would likely affect U.S. healthcare.
1. Ms. Clinton’s proposals
Ms. Clinton advocates for maintaining the Affordable Care Act, while making several key modifications to the law. Some of her proposed amendments include providing refundable tax credits to privately insured Americans whose premium and out-of-pocket costs exceed 5 percent of income; lowering the maximum premium contribution on the marketplace to 8.5 percent of income; providing premium tax credits to families covered under employer plans whose plans exceed 8.5 percent of income; and adding a public option to the ACA marketplaces. Ms. Clinton’s plans to continue to expand Medicaid and lower the Medicare age were not included in the analysis.
2. Mr. Trump’s proposals
On the flip side, Mr. Trump would repeal and replace the ACA if elected in November. In place of the healthcare reform law, he would make premiums on the individual market fully tax deductible; covert Medicaid and CHIP to block grants; and allow interstate insurance sales.
3. Insurance coverage
The analysis of Ms. Clinton’s plans indicates an additional 9 million people would gain health insurance coverage in 2018, while the analysis of Mr. Trump’s plan indicates 20.2 million Americans would lose health insurance coverage in 2018.
4. Federal deficit
Both of the candidate’s plans analyzed, when subtotaled, would increase federal deficit by more than $100 billion. Ms. Clinton’s tax credit proposal would increase deficit by $90.4 billion, while reducing the maximum premium contribution to 8.5 percent would increase deficit by an additional $3.5 billion. Fixing the “family glitch” for maximum premium contributions for families on employer plans would add $10 billion to the deficit. Only her proposal to add a public option would lower the deficit, by $700 million.
Mr. Trump’s plans would increase deficit across the board. Repealing the ACA would add $33.1 billion to the deficit, replacing it with tax-deductible premiums would increase deficit by $41 billion, Medicaid block grants would add $500 million and interstate insurance sales would add $33.7 billion.
5. Out-of-pocket spending
Ms. Clinton’s tax credits would help low- and moderate-income Americans, who earn between 139 and 250 percent of the federal poverty level, spend 33 percent less out-of-pocket on healthcare costs, according to the analysis. Mr. Trump’s plan would increase out-of-pocket costs for ACA enrollees anywhere from $300 a year to $2,500 a year.
Read the full analysis of Ms. Clinton’s healthcare proposal here and the analysis of Mr. Trump’s here.
Source: Trump, Clinton’s healthcare plans would achieve opposite results, studies find