The Middle Class and Health Care

Not being able to afford health care in America is a growing problem that Obama, during his time in office, made his mission to solve. But Trump and his administration has very different plans for how we should go about health care and has made it his mission to dismantle what Obama has created. Recently, in The New York Times the Editorial Board wrote Trump Tries to Kill Obamacare by a Thousand Cuts and talks about what Trump is doing instead of improving Obamacare. The Editorial Board talks about how each class will be affected by Trump’s new way of ruining-I mean running health care. [Just a quick side note for those of you who don't know who The Editorial Board is, they are a group of 16 editors, researchers, experts, and professors that work on all the editorials for The New York Times.] They are warning every American (mostly the lower and middle class) about what lies ahead if Congress gets the opportunity to go forward with this plan. The Department of Health and Human Services is planning on increasing the number of days that a temporary health plan is effective, which the whole point of having temporary health care is because you're in a temporary situation that does not allow you to have stable a health plan. However, with doing so they also cannot provide a number of basic (and very important) policies like "mental health services, substance abuse treatment, cancer drugs and maternity care," says the Editorial Board. This is a tactic that could attract a younger, healthier audience because they would be paying a lot less for something they don't really need but are forced to have. Unfortunately, this would leave the older and more sickly to be forced to pay a lot more for the services that they need because they would be the only substantial revenue stream coming in for the health care providers. And of course the middle class would be forced to pick up any remaining slack, meaning they would have to pay a lot more in premiums and out of pocket, because most don't qualify for any government assistance. The Editorial Board does talk about two solutions they think are possible. One is that the government could created a program for the insurance providers that would encourage them to expand to more parts of the country, mostly parts in poverty, and in return they have loss protection from very ill people that decide to use their plans. I don’t agree with this one because having another layer of insurance on top of the insurance provider themselves would be a very expensive endeavor for the country. The other is that they could offer subsidies to middle-class families who make too much money to qualify for government assistance but who can’t really afford to get sick because of the high premiums they already face. I think the middle-class is disappearing and honestly that is bad for the economy. I’m very skeptical when it comes to government assistance but health care is a different story. We saw recently with this super flu how rapidly and unexpectedly a virus can take over the whole country, but more importantly how it is not merciful to those who can't get proper health care. I understand everyone needs to make money, but should it really be at the cost of people’s lives who can’t afford much, children, and people who have recently found themselves jobless?