April 18, 2018

Without Individual Mandate, Report Predicts Many Hoosiers Will Opt Out Of Insurance

Original story from   IPBS-RJC

Article origination IPBS-RJC
Pixabay/public domain

Pixabay/public domain

The GOP tax bill ended the individual mandate that required Americans to have insurance.  A new analysis of its impact predicts many Hoosiers may opt out.  It also takes a look at other ways Hoosiers health care may be effected because of the tax law.  

Americans for Tax Fairness, a coalition of nonprofits, prepared the report. It predicts tax bill spending cuts and changes in the Affordable Care Act will motivate many to drop their health insurance. 

The report predicts more than 240,000 Hoosiers will opt out of insurance by 2025. 

People of Faith for Access to Medicines' Fran Quigley says big tax cuts benefit drug and health insurance companies. 

"We essentially give them the keys to the vault of taxpayer dollars and they take billions and billions of dollars and all this tax bill dose is reward them for it," says Quigley. 

Quigley says the Trump administration passed the tax cuts without a way to pay for them.

"Someone’s got to pay for the $1.5 trillion in revenue that’s not there and what this report shows is what we feared is coming true is that the people who are going to be asked to pay for that are working people, the people who need health care," says Quigley. 

The paper suggests cuts to social programs including Medicare, disability and SNAP could be used to pay for the new tax cuts. 

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