The Republican healthcare bill would bring 'close to unprecedented' chaos in the health system

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September 24, 2017 3:06 PM

The Graham-Cassidy healthcare bill would force states to develop a new healthcare system in just two years, which could lead to chaos for insurers and patients.

Republicans are taking one last stab at repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act, but experts say their latest attempt runs the risk of bringing chaos to the US healthcare system.

Experts say the so-called Graham-Cassidy healthcare bill, whose legislative fate became more uncertain Friday, would set up a deadline for states that could cause massive upheaval and sow uncertainty in insurance markets.

The legislation would keep intact several provisions of the law known as Obamacare for 2018 and 2019. But it would force states to set up an entirely new individual insurance market — for people who don't get coverage through an employer — and Medicaid by 2020.

The bill's authors have presented the two-year window as a cushion to ensure no disruption for people in those insurance markets. But Larry Levitt, a senior vice president at the Kaiser Family Foundation, said the transition isn't nearly long enough.

As with the years leading up to 2020, uncertainty about what rules will govern the individual market in the future may put downward pressure on individual market participation, increasing premiums and reducing coverage," the analysis said.

That could also be a reaction to the lessons learned from Obamacare. Insurers underpriced many of their Obamacare plans in the first few years of the exchanges, leading to significant financial losses and rapidly rising premiums over the past few years.

So even with the two-year window, the massive upheaval would lead to a mad dash by states, insurer chaos, and potentially higher costs for insurers.

Or as Jon Kingsdale, a public health professor at Boston University, told the New Times Times: "

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