The LuLac Edition #3401, January 11th, 2017

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HEALTH CARE REFORM BY THE GOP??

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We all need to understand this now:
When Trump or Paul Ryan say they want to replace the ACA with "Health Savings Accounts" (HSAs), they are also saying they want to replace Obamacare or Medicare or Medicaid with YOU paying for your healthcare.
That means YOU pay for chemotherapy... YOU pay for all surgeries and hospitalization...
YOU pay for all your family's doctor visits, urgent care, ER visits, and prescription drugs out-of-your-pocket. No longer will our tax dollars help us to pool our resources to share the costs of necessary care. They intend to claw-back the social safety net to pre-New Deal times.
A Health Savings Account is just a tax-free way for you to save up money to pay for your own medical bills. So if you are paying off college loans, or saving for a house down-payment, or simply living paycheck to paycheck, guess what -- a Health Savings Account does you no good, because you have no discretionary funds to deposit into it. And even if you manage to save five grand or ten grand in an HSA, that could all get wiped out in one routine hospital visit for you or a family member. Then you are back to square zero again.
Don't be fooled if they say they're going to "give" you a token amount to "start you off" -- in no way will it replace the kind of coverage you can get now. Even if you can supplement your HSA with affordable health insurance, you will be eating away at money that you should be investing for your retirement or your kids' college tuition. Only the top 3-5% of Americans can save enough for retirement, college AND their own out-of-pocket medical expenses. Therefore, the tax benefits of HSA's only help those people.
The actual purpose for repealing the Affordable Care Act and for drastically changing Social Security and Medicare is to transfer the money currently allocated to them to the very wealthy via more tax cuts for the mega-rich. Millions of us won't be able to afford necessary care so the upper crust will feel even grander.
Please call your Congress member to protest this now. Their plan is to rush this through before most people understand what's going on.