This week, the Congress is preparing to Repeal the Affordable Care Act and, perhaps, replace it with another plan. The Kaiser Family Foundation has provided comparisons of the most prominent plans to date in terms of coverage, costs, pre-existing conditions. and other factors. You can see these comparisons of Rep. Paul Ryan, Sen. Rand Paul, Rep. Tom Price, and Sen. Bill Cassidy to the current law by going to http://kff.org/interactive/proposals-to-replace-the-affordable-care-act/.
As I stated in my post on Linked in, the Op-Ed on the replacement of the Affordable care act, the proposals for block grants to fund Medicaid and/or Medicare would mean the end of these programs. As of June, 2016, 1,356,251 Colorado citizens were enrolled in Medicaid. Many of these are in long term care facilities. Perhaps you did not know that Medicaid is the only government program that assists in paying for long term care for the elderly and disabled. Perhaps you did not know that the average cost of care in a facility in Denver is over $8,000.00 per month. But you do now. Even for those who have saved $200,000, the cost of such care will wipe out these savings within two years whereas the average stay for a person in care is three years. Home care for these people is not an option unless a family member quits working. That results in loss of tax income and an increase in emergency room admissions for people who cannot pay for health care.