You might think in our current political climate that there is absolutely nothing upon which Republicans and Democrats agree. But the recent “One Big Beautiful Bill” revealed that members of the two parties all strongly agree that if Americans are required to put in the slightest bit of effort to maintain public benefits, they aren’t going to do it.
On the morning after Congress approved the “BBB” the New York Times released an article and podcast where reporters tried to explain how as many as 15-million Americans would “lose their health insurance” under the bill. The reporter noted that the vast majority of those likely to be affected are able-bodied adults without children that would now be required to work or volunteer 80-hours a month to remain eligible for coverage. But she added that was likely not going to be the major stumbling block for those people. Instead, the requirement to actually document the hours worked, and to file those reports on a regular basis, is what would result in most people losing their coverage.
The reporter explained that “issue” by stating “You know, like, people get busy and they forget to file stuff like that. And then they will end up being ineligible.” Another explanation offered is that “gig economy workers” don’t have experience punching a clock and would have to record the hours they drive their Uber or deliver DoorDash meals on their own. She also pointed out that while a myriad of exemptions to the work requirement would still apply for physical or mental disabilities, the bill now requires documentation from a medical provider and that “You know, not everyone has time to go to the doctor for that”.
And the coup de gras? Several deadlines will have to be met with that information every year. And if you know anything about Americans, we aren’t the best at meeting deadlines. I don’t know if White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller want into his evil laboratory under the West Wing over the winter pondering ways to stiff as many people as possible and had a eureka moment: “We will kill them with paperwork!!” But odds are, it will be a success–and all of our politicians know it.
Republicans are banking on the aforementioned 15-million people to not bother with the filing requirements to remain on Medicaid. They baked that savings right into the bill to “pay off” the extension of the tax cuts that were going to expire this year. Democrats, too, know the new requirements are going to meet their achieved goal, because they are also talking like its a done deal–15-million people WILL, not “could”, WILL lose their Medicaid coverage is included in every press conference, email, and campaign donation request.
There is a reason why everyone along the political spectrum can be so confident in their predictions, we have plenty of historical evidence to support it. Consider the rollout of the Affordable Care Act and HealthCare.gov in 2013. The deadline for everybody to sign up for the new insurance plans offered through the website was December 15th of that year. Of course, HealthCare.gov’s rollout was an unmitigated disaster–as people couldn’t log on, or thought they had registered, only to find the system completely reset without saving their information. But even after those bugs were worked out, there still wasn’t the stampede that ObamaCare supporters thought there would be.
I remember being inundated that December with requests from every liberal group in the area: AARP, the League of Women Voters, all of the local libraries–asking if we could give them “a few minutes on the air” to remind everyone that that the deadline was approaching and that having health insurance was now the law. There were sign-up clinics held at public institutions. Countless millions of dollars were spent on radio, TV, and pop-up ads with links directly to the website. Some groups went door to door offering to help people register–and yet, all of that was producing little results.
Eventually, the Obama administration extended the deadline to January 15th of 2014–and there was another round of ads, events, and community canvassing–with similarly feeble results–so the deadline was extended again to March 15th, when Washington finally had to say “this is your last chance”. And since then, despite offers of subsidies, guaranteed coverage, and widespread expansion of Medicaid programs, there are still an estimated 29.5-million people that do not have health insurance. (Just think if the “penalty”–or “tax” as Chief Justice John Roberts defined it for the purposes of finding the Affordable Care Act constitutional–hadn’t been reduced to 0-dollars in 2019. We could probably cover those 15-million people who are “going to lose” their Medicaid coverage with the revenue generated by the fine–I mean “tax”. But I digress.)
It was also pointed out in the article and the podcast that we are a year and a half away from the work and eligibility filing requirements actually going into effect. That means those “gig workers” have 18-months to practice logging their hours so that it is just a habit when they have to do it for real. It’s a year and a half for those with conditions that would meet the long list of exemptions to “find time” to go to the doctor for proper documentation. And it is plenty of time for all of those advocacy groups to plan their strategies to do “community organizing”, canvassing the entire nation to help those who refuse to put in the slightest modicum of effort to preserve their benefits.
Democrats could be spinning those efforts as a way to “stick it to Republicans” by encouraging their supporters to actually put in that little bit of work every few months to maintain their benefits. That would torpedo the Republican plan, even further explode the national debt, and keep people covered under Medicaid–which I thought was the main goal. But we all know they aren’t going to do that, because Democrats–just like those of us who actually make sure to file all of the info needed to maintain important things like insurance, vehicle registration, and our kids’ enrollment in school every fall–know without a doubt, those 15-million people are not going to do it. And if they feel like “victims” of the evil Republicans in Washington–then they might just vote for enough Democrats in the mid-term elections next year to flip control of both houses of Congress.
Meanwhile, I’m sure many of those 15-million future victims were well aware of Amazon Prime Days this week–and were more than able to provide the information needed to order and receive their stuff.
