Are you afraid yet? Because you’d better be. There’s a blitzkrieg heading for the key institutions that guarantee Americans health care. If the Healthcare Snatchers get their way, it’ll give a whole new meaning to “American Exceptionalism.”

Let’s spell out their plans:

1. Mutilate Medicare

Medicare is a federal public health insurance program that covers about 4 million California seniors and persons with disabilities. Before Medicare was signed into law in 1965, covering American seniors was a low priority for the private health insurance industry. After all, they excel at covering folks who don’t need care.

Since 1965, Medicare has faced decades of cuts by ideologues who oppose the notion of public programs that guarantee everyone access to services. Instead, they think it’s best to guarantee access to those who can PAY for care. And if you can’t pay? “That’s too bad. You should’ve been rich.”

Today, Paul Ryan, a Healthcare Snatcher, wants to take advantage of the Trump presidency to eliminate Medicare as we know it and turn it into a voucher program for seniors to use to purchase private health insurance. Of course the private health insurers will only cover seniors if they can make money off it. Which they’ll do by refusing to cover pre-existing conditions, charging super high premiums, cutting back on coverage and reducing access to doctors. Oh, wait. Isn’t that the problem Medicare solved for us in the first place?

Ryan is telling lies to gain support for his idea. He’s claiming that Medicare is going broke. Nothing could be further from the truth.

In fact, those who will go broke are America’s seniors, who, according to Michael Hiltzik of the LA Times, “will be saddled with paying not only for their care, but for the shareholder dividends and executive pay of private insurance companies. The savings Ryan touts would be illusory…”

Better invest in funeral homes, folks, because that’s where the smart money will be if the Healthcare Snatchers get their way.

2. Cripple Medi-Cal

Medi-Cal is a combined federal and state health insurance program that covers 1/3 of Californians. That equals nearly 13 million vulnerable Californians, including more than 5.2 million children and about 60% of people living in nursing homes. Medi-Cal is considered “safety-net” coverage – a lifeline – for people who are between jobs, or who lose their job, for children and for elderly people.

Healthcare Snatcher Ryan wants to cancel Medicaid’s matching guarantee, reducing the federal share of our Medi-Cal funding and leaving Californians struggling.

On top of that, the GOP congress and their leader, Healthcare Snatcher Mitch McConnell, also wants to take back the Medicaid Expansion, which would eliminate $15 billion in federal funding for California. That would leave nearly 4 million Californians without coverage, and our hospitals and doctors saddled with crushing, unreimbursed healthcare costs.

3. Obliterate Obamacare

Obamacare provides nearly $5 billion in federal support for Covered California and premium subsidies for over 1 million income-qualified Californians so they can afford to buy insurance.

The loss of these tax credits will make it impossible for many low-income Californians to comply with the insurance mandate and purchase insurance.

Just as important are the consumer protections that Obamacare imposed on a greedy health insurance industry that has consistently demonstrated a willingness to let Americans die, for profit. The GOP Congress, led by Healthcare Snatcher Mitch McConnell, has tried to repeal Obamacare and its consumer protections about 60 times, but President Obama was able to stop it.

Healthcare Snatcher-in-Chief Trump, however, has other ideas, and not just “repeal.” Repeal would be complex. Simpler, perhaps, would be a “death by a thousand cuts” strategy. This could include voiding guidelines, refusing to implement components of Obamacare and various administrative actions.

Trump’s other “big” idea is to eliminate state-based consumer protections by allowing insurers to sell individual health insurance across state lines.

This would especially harm Californians who enjoy stronger consumer protections than other states including standards on timely access to care, network adequacy standards, language access, and the right to appeal denials of care.

To learn more about the coming disaster, check out Health Access’ excellent Health Care at Risk Fact Sheet and this LA Times article by Soumya Karlamangla, If Obamacare is repealed, California has the most to lose.

So what now?

These threats to our safety net are bull hockey. California needs a healthcare plan that won’t go away. We need something we can depend on today and tomorrow. We need to fix healthcare for real!

If you want to learn how we can do that, check out our next blog: Defeat of the Healthcare Snatchers.

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