The Center for American Progress has just published a new fact sheet outlining the impact that the health care repeal bill now being considered in the U.S. Senate — that the Republicans are calling the Better Care Reconciliation Act of 2017 (BCRA) and that sane people are calling TrumpCare and utterly f’in ridiculous — would have an “outsized impact” on those of us in the LGBT communities.
The information comes from “a nationally representative survey commissioned and designed by CAP and fielded by Knowledge Networks,” according to the CAP press release. The survey questioned 1,864 individuals about their experiences with health insurance and health care in late January 2017.
Key findings include:
- An estimated 560,000 LGBTQ adults will lose coverage if Medicaid expansion is ended.
- Under the Affordable Care Act — called ObamaCare by those seeking to undermine its efficiency and repeal it — uninsurance among low- and middle-income LGBTQ adults dropped by 35 percent between 2013 and 2017. But 15 percent of LGBTQ adults still need health insurance, compared to 7 percent of non-LGBTQ adults.
- Medicaid covers at least 1.8 million LGBTQ adults (18 percent of all LGBTQ adults), including 31 percent of LGBTQ adults living with a disability and 40 percent of LGBTQ adults with incomes under 250 percent of the federal poverty level.
- The BCRA prohibits federal Medicaid reimbursements for Planned Parenthood for one year; Planned Parenthood is one of the country’s largest providers of transgender-inclusive health care.
- BCRA would harm individuals with pre-existing conditions, including the 65 percent of LGBTQ adults who have a pre-existing condition such as diabetes, asthma, heart disease or HIV. These individuals living in states that chose to eliminate essential health benefits (EHB) under the BCRA would face significant increases in their out-of-pocket costs for care.
The full fact sheet is available here.
