The Republican healthcare bill still has a massive problem

pulse

May 4, 2017 12:18 AM

Republicans are relying on high risk pools to cover sick Americans, but that may not be a good bet.

Donald Trump meets with Speaker of the House Paul Ryan on Capitol Hill in Washington.

While the vote is expected to be close, Republicans leaders have expressed confidence that the bill will pass.

Even if the bill does go through, however, it still has a glaring weakness.

Republicans have relied heavily on a key new provision of their healthcare overhaul to sell the bill, but it has a potential problem: They may have not allocated enough money to it.

The GOP has touted high-risk pools as a way to section off people with preexisting conditions from the rest of the market, lowering costs for healthy people.

Such pools are, in theory, supposed to be subsidized by states and the federal government in order to keep costs down for the sick people in them.

Republicans have used that idea to combat criticism of another AHCA amendment from Rep. Tom MacArthur, which could undermine protections for people with preexisting conditions

The original AHCA set aside $130 billion over 10 years for a state stability fund. That fund wasn't explicitly earmarked for high-risk pools, but they were among the functions for which the states could use the funding. Also, a new amendment from Rep. Fred Upton would add another $8 billion to this funding over five years.

Even an estimated from conservative analysts James C. Capretta and Tom Miller said that in order to operate functional high-risk pools in all 50 states, the federal government would need to provide $15 billion to $20 billion annually, leaving the AHCA short even with the proposed money from Upton's amendment.

A separate analysis from Emily GeeTopher Spiro at the liberal Center for American Progress found that high-risk pools would need $327 billion over 10 years, leaving the AHCA well short under the current plan.

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