apoc

Viktor Vasnetsov, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

Joel Zinberg, M.D.,  a visiting scholar at the Republican Party-linked American Enterprise Institute, a surgeon at Mount Sinai Hospital and an associate clinical professor of surgery at the Icahn School of Medicine, the latter two both in New York, denounces proponents of the Affordable Care Act for trumpeting a  study by the Democratic Party-linked Urban Institute  that predicts disaster if the Affordable Care Act is repealed.

He says the report “examines a sham version of what Republicans are proposing and ignores inconvenient realities that undermine its conclusions.”

“The Urban Institute predicts this would lead to nearly 30 million people losing their insurance. It claims repeal will leave fewer people insured than before the ACA was enacted.”

“The problem with this doomsday scenario is that no one is suggesting repeal through {congressional} reconciliation alone. House Republicans proposed a replacement package called A Better Way. Department of Health and Human Services secretary designee, Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga., has also proposed replacement legislation. House Speaker Paul Ryan announced his intention to pass legislation that will repeal the ACA over a year or two to transition to a replacement.”

“Any action by the new Republican president and Congress will change the ACA’s insurance market reforms and include new programs. The generous and expensive ACA minimum essential benefits package will likely be replaced with more flexible standards to allow consumers to select insurance that they want, need and can afford.”

He concludes: “The majority of Americans have waited eight years to repeal and replace the ACA with a more flexible, consumer-centered healthcare system. Neither the new president nor the Congress should be deterred by fallacious arguments.”