$8 billion over five years…which will probably be used up just covering people in Delaware, Wyoming, and Alaska. Take a bow, guy.
In addition to being evil, this is also really badly written and would be subject to all kinds of litigation. It essentially gives Price arbitrary power on how to allocate the money to the states that request waivers (and only those states, so it’s a sort of game of chicken – if only a few states go for waivers, they make out OK-ish, but if a lot of states do, everyone is done for.) And it’s written literally to only help people whose premiums go up as a result of the waiver. So if your coverage is trashed, or your co-pays and deductibles and out-of-pocket limits go through the roof, none of this money will be available to you.
$ 8 billion years is $ 1.6 billion/year. Assuming an average cost of $10,000/year for each patient with a serious chronic disease (and that may well be a low-ball number) this will cover 160,000 patients. Out of 300 million people.
No one should be wowed, this legislation has never been about better healthcare for anyone, it is all about tax break for the wealthy . In order to have some flexibility into the Tax Cuts, this bill has to come first to say - see not a huge debt increase, and please ignore all the dead people.So as long as only maybe half a dozen Red States decide to kill off their residents, it could almost work, kinda, sorta.