News Item: Utah’s Mike Lee compares Obamacare to car insurance in online town hall discussing health care bill

The Difference Is, You Won't Die If You Can't Afford Car Insurance

"Imagine if car insurance companies were required to charge everyone the same car insurance rate regardless of how likely they were to get into an accident," [Lee] said. "Those of you who are older and perhaps have good driving records — no tickets, no accidents — would be forced to pay higher insurance premiums. You'd, in effect, be subsidizing younger and riskier drivers while not receiving a reward for your safe driving. This is sort of like what's happening under Obamacare."

With the current health care system, the senator said, healthy, middle-class families are burdened with the costs of covering sicker individuals who need more care. His proposal would instead lump those with pre-existing conditions and specialized needs into a segregated risk pool while freeing up other individuals to select less expensive plans.

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I Am Sure This Will Go Over Really Well...

News Item: Utah seeks to cap costs, sign-ups in limited Medicaid plan

Utah and other Republican states are proposing to cut costs in the state’s Medicaid plan to cover the poor by requiring some participants to have jobs and limiting them to five years of coverage.

The state has also proposed capping the number of people covered by the program at 25,000 and stopping their coverage after five years. Officials also want to require a $25 copay for emergency-room visits that aren’t true emergencies.

Micah Vorwaller, a policy analyst with the Utah Health Policy Project, a nonprofit advocacy group promoting affordable health care, said a lifetime limit can be a problem for the homeless and the poor because it can sometimes take people longer than five years to get back on their feet.

Remember: Don't Get Sick

News Item: Utah would have 72 percent more uninsured under Senate Republican health care bill, compared to Obamacare, study finds

A recent study by the Urban Institute, a left-leaning Washington, D.C-based economic and social policy think tank, found that 586,000 nonelderly Utahns — or 72 percent more people — would be uninsured in 2022 under the Senate plan compared to the ACA. Under the current law, the institute estimates that 341,000 people would be uninsured under the ACA in 2022.

You Expect me to *see* the People I Represent?!

News Item: Sen. Mike Lee to hold electronic town hall on health care reform

NO! More People Need to Die for me to Like it!

News Item: Fearing financial havoc from lost medical coverage, residents press Utah’s Sen. Mike Lee to oppose Republican health care bill