June 23, 2017

My Thoughtful Critique of Trumpcare

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Avik Roy has a request:

OK, here’s my Top 5 list:

  1. Medicaid: The Senate bill slashes spending on Medicaid in order to cut taxes on the rich. This is a cruel and unnecessary tradeoff for the richest country in the history of the world.
  2. Death Spiral: It eliminates the individual mandate; reduces subsidies for the poor; reduces benchmark plans to an actuarial value of 58 percent; and increases deductibles and copays. Whatever instability Obamacare currently has, this will make it far, far worse.
  3. Essential Health Benefits: Like the House bill, the Senate bill makes it easy for states to cut essential health benefits, which motivates insurers to offer low-end policies for the working poor that are worthless—but only if you read the fine print.
  4. More Uninsured: It will lead to tens of millions fewer people having health coverage. CBO will provide an exact number in a few days, but we already know it’s going to be big.
  5. Lifetime Caps: Guts protections against annual and lifetime caps, and because of the way the bill is written, it’s likely to do this even for employer insurance, not just for the individual market.

There’s more, like the substantial increase in premiums for older workers and the quiet kickback to insurance company CEOs. And what are the benefits? Unless you’re rich or you really, really want to cut funding for Planned Parenthood, it’s hard to see any.

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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