@snowballcity – You asked how much the folks in Congress pay. The ironic thing is that the ACA required them to get their insurance the same place as everyone else, on the exchanges. Before the ACA, they had the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program.
http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/on-health-care-well-have-what-congress-is-having
This might explain their rabid desire to repeal the ACA.
The more I see the town hall type coverage on cable news (ie more than a 20 second comment,) those folks DO know healthcare matters. See if you can find the Chris Hayes bit from last night, where he and Bernie visited McDowell County, WV. The issue is how to get enough of us to stand up for it.
And you know, some of us may not live in those areas, may not think of their issues much, but they are still part of “us.”
Unless you have employer insurance, you can’t. I’d imagine people in that situation who really want health insurance will end up buying a catastrophic plan. I wonder how that works…you get credits up to the amount that you pay? Do you have to select a specific sort of insurance in order to get the credits, or if you file for it, you get it?
I wonder if the insurance companies are going to give some sort of “tax credit loan”. You pay us after you get your tax credit, and we’ll loan the insurance money to you for a 18% rate. What a deal. 
The rock and the hard place are that their big donors and many of their voters are on different sides of what the health care system should be.
Actually, congress granted themselves a special exemption to ACA. They have a " special" plan…
https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R43194.pdf
Premiums vary, but there’s a large employer kick in.
And for reference, the base salary is $174k.
What good does a tax credit do if you have less tax liability than your actual taxes are? For lower income folks…that is very possible.
A refundable tax credit like the EITC could result in a negative income tax that means that the government pays the person the excess of the tax credit over his/her tax liability. E.g. if the person gets a refundable tax credit of $2,000 but has a tax liability of $500, the government would pay him/her $1,500.
I watched the MSNBC program last night. Very illuminating especially the part about the class action suit against Big Phama, 3 companies. A town with a population of 400 people in which many thousands of prescriptions were written and processed for opoids. Clearly there isn’t or hasn’t been any accountability in the past. A federal prison was constructed in this area but none of the local population could pass the drug test for employment. About two years ago there was an especially harrowing piece written about the Baltimore County or perhaps City jail in the New Yorker in which all prison guards had to be female because the male population did not have high school diplomas or GED and could not pass a drug test.
The premium subsidies for the ACA (Obamacare) are refundable tax credits.The premium subsidies for the AHCA (Ryan’s bill) are also refundable. Refundable, in this case, means you get the money even if you have no tax liability. They’re the same thing, except that I believe the taxpayer has to wait until they get their tax refund to get their money, for the Ryan bill.
As to the question upthread (by LasMa, I think) about whether the CBO considered a premium death spiral, yes, they did. The CBO believes that the ACA is not in a death spiral now and won’t be in one in 2026, and the AHCA would also not be in a death spiral by 2026. A number of health policy analysts had thought that the Ryan bill would cause a death spiral, and a number of politicians say the ACA is in one now, but the CBO disagrees in both cases.
I watched Tom Prices interview this morning and Sean Spicer’s press appearance this afternoon. Along with Paul Ryan and the others they keep saying that this plan will provide more choices at a lower cost… but nowhere is that detailed anywhere. Why do think this will be the scenario?
Personally I have very good coverage as my husband is retired Federal employee. Now both my daughters are covered by their employers although younger d’s premium just went up and they were led to believe it would decrease. Before younger d got full-time position (hurray) she was covered by ACA under Medicaid expansion in NYS. I believe she was assigned a plan and although in the 2 years she was covered after turning 26, she did not need to see doctor although she did visit Planned Parenthood for a gyno exam. She did however get to have a dental check-up and cleaning and had choices of dentists.
Older d’s boyfriend who is in the gig economy as a project editor/archivist after getting his Master’s in Library Science, just also got full-time position as a result of his most recent project position. While being covered by ACA, he was able to get a physical as well as a needed endoscopy.
I wondered what they meant, also. I thought maybe they are inferring that now people will be able to buy cheap catastrophic plans again, without having to pay a penalty. That would be more choices at lower cost, though certainly not for everyone.
Catastrophic is only lower cost until you actually need to use that insurance coverage.
From what I gathered, they are counting on healthcare costs to decrease, thus lowering the need for higher subsidies. Things like lowering costs of prescription drugs, medical malpractice reform, selling policies across state lines, etc… That’s their vision anyway.
Basically, the plan is heavily dependent on healthcare costs dropping, and many people are skeptical of that actually panning out.
That’s nice. We’d all like health care costs to decrease. But I’ve looked at their legislation. It contains nothing that would cause health care costs to decrease.
Shhh, @“Cardinal Fang” , you’re not supposed to look behind the curtain - or talk reason and substance. 
I see nothing in the new legislation that willl…
- Decrease costs.
- Provide more choices
- Make this more affordable.
- Prevent insurance companies from pulling out...
- Have decent doctor networks.
In fairness, reducing health care costs in the US is really, really hard. If it were easy, we’d have done it already.
Who knew health care was was so complicated!!!
Note that the “deterrent” against adverse selection behavior (going uninsured until one gets an expensive sickness and then buying insurance with pre-existing conditions covered), other than risking the possibility of a sudden expensive sickness, differs between the current and proposed scheme:
ACA/ObamaCare: larger of (smaller of 2.5% of household AGI or national average yearly premium of bronze plan) or ($695 per adult plus $347.50 per child up to $2,085), paid as tax during a year without insurance (prorated if you are covered for part of the year).
AHCA/RyanCare/TrumpCare: 30% of premium for a year paid to insurance company after having a >63 day gap in coverage. Effectively slightly less than 4 months of premium costs of whatever plan you would choose to buy.