The guide to surviving under the GOP health care plan
May 5, 2017, 6:41 AM
Most news coverage of the Republican health care plan is focused on who loses. So I am going to focus on who wins. Because you can win, you just have to know how.
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• Number one: Get a job. Even if that job doesn’t provide insurance, the bill gives you a refundable tax credit of up to $4,000 a year to help you buy your own.
• Number two: If your job does provide insurance, keep that job no matter how much you hate it!
• Number three: Become a health insurance broker. Obamacare allowed only three types of plans. This new law would allow hundreds. People will not only need help deciding which is right for them, they’ll need help just hauling all the brochures from the mailbox to the kitchen table.
• Number four: High-income people no longer have to pay the Obamacare taxes. When someone offers you a job paying over $200,000 a year, take it this time!
• Number five: If you depend on Medicaid, or if you are in your 50’s with a pre-existing condition, try to reach age 65 as quickly as possible, because then you get Medicare which is the one single-payer plan no one seems to have philosophical objections to.
And finally, because you’d be free not to buy any health insurance at all, people who are young and healthy can just not buy any. Although in that case, I’d advise you stay young and healthy until you turn 65.
Or, as long as we’re using magical thinking, you could adopt a pet Phoenix with healing powers. They still make house calls too, even if you’re uninsured.
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