Affordable Care Act Overhaul May Cost Connecticut

March 08--Connecticut could pay a significant price if the latest plan to repeal-and-replace the Affordable Care Act is enacted.

Medicaid reimbursement to the state could fall by more than $600 million starting in 2020, Lt. Gov. Nancy Wyman said Tuesday. Medicaid costs of $1.4 billion are now reimbursed at a rate of 95 percent, which would be cut to 50 percent, she said, further straining already tight state finances.

However, tax credits received by consumers under the Affordable Care Act -- popularly known as Obamacare -- by 2020 would be less than what would be available with the proposed American Health Care Act released Monday by Republican House leaders, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Wyman, a Democrat, criticized the tax credits proposed by House Republicans to subsidize health care as useless to Connecticut's poorest residents.

"If you don't pay taxes, what do you get a credit for?" she asked.

House Republicans have repeatedly voted to repeal the ACA but their efforts were symbolic as long as President Barack Obama was in the White House. Republican particularly disliked the mandate requiring individuals buy health insurance or pay a fine, and many taxes associated with the law.

The difference between Obamacare and the Republican alternative is how the tax credit is calculated: the ACA accounts for family income, local cost of insurance and age. The proposed GOP replacement bases tax credits only on age, with a phaseout for individuals with incomes greater than $75,000.

Mark McWhinney, a Kent resident, said he could manage with less help from the government under the House Republican proposal, but not easily.

"I could do it," said McWhinney, 59. "It just would be painful."

But McWhinney, a self-employed education consultant, said he's furious at the Republican approach to Medicaid and believes the subsidies should remain income-based, not just based on age.

ConnectiCare covers about two-thirds of about 110,000 Obamacare customers. Individual health insurance on and off the exchange makes up about 40 percent of the company's business.

Eric Galvin, ConnectiCare's president, said changes to Obamacare to reduce subsidies that eliminate the individual mandate that requires people to purchase insurance -- a key priority for Republicans -- will make the market even less balanced for insurers.

"I think an income-based subsidy does really make sense," he said.

Analyst Spencer Perlman of Veda Partners of Bethesda, Md., said he believes the measure will pass the House later this month, but it cannot pass the Senate without substantial changes. The Republicans' Senate majority is narrower than in the House.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., was quick to denounce the Republican plan, calling it "heartless" and promising to help kill it.

"This plan is dead on arrival and I will do all that I can to ensure its defeat," he said.

One thing that won't likely change is the partisan nature of the debate. In addition to criticism from Wyman, Blumenthal and Sen. Chris Murphy, Rep. Joe Courtney, D-2nd District, and Gov. Dannel P. Malloy took shots at House Republicans.

"If this is what took them seven years to do, we're in sad shape in this country," Wyman said.

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