US Election 2020: Trumpcare or Bidencare? Americans vote for affordable healthcare
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While the Democrats are fighting to make sure their candidate wins the Presidential elections, the Republican President is also fighting another battle in the US court — one with the aim to repeal the ACA
Healthcare is one of the most important services needed by any citizen and the Americans have often had to choose their leaders as per their future plans related to these basic necessities.
With the healthcare expense amounting to nearly 20 per cent of the US economy, the elections this year are no different. In this term of the Presidential election, the debate started with a choice between Obamacare and Trumpcare.
However, Joe Biden, the Democratic candidate and the Former President who served under Barack Obama, is hoping to expand the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and re-launch it under his own name, if he wins the elections.
On the other hand, the current President and the Republican candidate Donald Trump wants to scrap the whole deal altogether. This has started a debate over which approach would be better for the economy.
Bidencare, as many are now labelling it, aims to either increase the federal spending on healthcare by at least $2 trillion (and more) over a period of nearly ten years. Trumpcare, on the other hand, wants to either reduce the funding or, in Trump’s ideal world, completely suspend the federal funding.
The United States had nearly 46.5 million people without health insurance in 2010. This was when Obama decided to help out his fellow Americans and introduced ACA to assist and provide pocket-friendly healthcare insurance. Now the count of Americans without health insurance has dropped down to nearly 30 million, and under Bidencare, the Democrat party expects to reduce this number by at least 15 to 20 million further. Trump, on the other hand, has revealed no such plan and has time and again focused on the need to suspend or decrease federal funding for ACA.
Bidencare, upto this point, does sound like a better plan. The question now is, how will Joe Biden pump in more money into the healthcare plan.
More people can be covered under the healthcare scheme by subsidising health insurance purchases through tax credits. Biden has announced that he will be raising this amount by charging tax from the wealthy taxpayers and will expand public insurance to make sure the medical costs do not skyrocket. However, the plan sounds easier said than done, and whether or not Biden will be able to raise such funds from charging the wealthy groups is a tale that only time can tell. However, if Biden succeeds, the minority groups will be benefitted the most as several pieces of research have shown that the minority groups in the US suffer more chronic diseases, including the novel coronavirus, in comparison to the White nationals.
One thing, however, that is very clear through Bidencare, up to this point, is that if Joe Biden is successful in implementing his health care plan, it will be more beneficial for the economy as uninsured patients, as per few studies, do get expensive treatments and then end up in a bad credit score or if they are unable to pay then it negatively affects the financial stability of the hospitals.
Trump’s backup
While the Democrats are fighting to make sure their candidate wins the Presidential elections, the Republican President is also fighting another battle in the US court — one with the aim to repeal the ACA.
Trump has been unsuccessful in dismantling Obama’s healthcare plan in his four-year-long term. However, he is now fighting a court battle to fulfil his dream. A Supreme Court hearing is scheduled a week after the US elections.
However, if Trump wins the court hearing (which is not something the experts foresee), there is no specified backup plan to replace the insurance of the almost 21 million Americans who rely on Obamacare.
Some seem to believe that the only backup plan Trump has right now is to distribute the ACA funds to respective state governments who can further assist people by buying private health insurance and provide better coverage even to low-income households, provided it is not misused by the states.
Which leader has a better healthcare plan is a tough decision because while Biden is simply amplifying his former President’s plan, the current President is not revealing his whole set of cards yet. So, whether or not Americans will be able to afford proper healthcare will now only be clear once the next President of the US elections is chosen after the November 03 elections.
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