The Commonwealth Fund conducted a study comparing the healthcare plans of the two candidates – President Obama and Mitt Romney.  The chart above highlights some differences.  By 2022 – 72 million people would be uninsured under the Romney healthcare plan according to this study; that’s 12 million more people than if we left things as they were before Obama passed the ACA.  Under Obamacare – only 27 million would be uninsured.  And people will pay more for healthcare under Romney’s plan than under Obamacare by 54% in 2022.  Let’s compare the plans; this is what the study found in a summary:

• Romney’s plan covers fewer people than under Obamacare.
• Romney’s plan has 54% higher out of pocket expenses than under Obamacare.
• Romney’s plan doesn’t reduce the deficit or bend the cost curve like Obamacare.
• Romney’s plan would bring back pre-existing conditions if you lapse on your insurance whereas under Obamacare pre-existing conditions do not exist ever.  Ever.
• Romney’s plan would likely reduce consumer choice whereas Obamacare would expand it.  Romney’s plan would eliminate the tax credits for small businesses provided under Obamacare.
• Romney’s plan would increase costs for Medicare beneficiaries and make Medicare insolvent by 2016.  Obamacare reduces out of pocket expenses for seniors completely by 2020.

MedPageToday has the summary of the report HERE:

Because of his turning Medicaid into a block grant system, Romney’s plan would actually increase the number of uninsured by 12 million by 2022, the Commonwealth Fund study found. More than 80% of the increase in the uninsured stems from the cuts in Medicaid that would occur under Romney’s proposal.

The Romney approach would cut spending for Medicare as well as Medicaid, the report noted.

Nationally, the uninsured rate of nonelderly under the ACA would fall to 10% by 2022, the study predicted. Under Romney’s policies, it would increase to 26%, and would be at 22% if the ACA were never passed.

The Romney plan would also hit moderate income families hard. The uninsured rate for that group of people — defined as an annual income of $57,625 for a family of four — would jump from 28.3% to 36.4%. Under the ACA, it would fall to 6.9%, the report stated.

While the ACA provides a tax credit ranging from $3,900 to $4,500 per person to purchase plans on the private market, Romney would provide a tax deduction ranging from $1,900 to $2,600. This would cause higher out-of-pocket spending under Romney’s proposal.

You can find the Commonwealth Fund’s report HERE; an excerpt:

On each of the seven criteria used in this analysis to evaluate the candidates’ health care platforms, President Obama’s plan to fully implement the Affordable Care Act would likely outperform Governor Romney’s plan to repeal the law and replace it with fewer federal requirements for insurance markets and reduced funding for the Medicaid and Medicare programs. This conclusion is driven in part by the considerable detail available in the health reform law and the new guidance and regulations issued by the Department of Health and Human Services to implement its provisions, compared with Romney’s far less detailed proposals to replace the law.

The Affordable Care Act both substantially increases and improves health insurance coverage in private insurance markets and in public insurance programs for Americans across income and age groups, while also providing new incentives aimed at improving health care quality and lowering the rate of growth in spending. Fully two-and-a-half years after its passage, with many of its provisions already in place, the law is already interwoven into the nation’s regulatory and industrial landscape. In 15 months, the major insurance coverage provisions are set to roll out, with more than 30 million people projected to gain subsidized coverage over the next decade.

And Romney’s plan will cost more too.  Under Obamacare – out of pocket expenses would be around 9.1% of a person’s income compared to 14.1% of a person’s income for Romney.  That means consumers will pay 54% more in out of pocket expenses under Romney relative to their incomes than under Obamacare.

Just a reminder – one of the biggest reasons Republicans are so dead set against Obamacare is that it eliminates the payroll tax cap essentially and forces millionaires to pay an additional 3.8% Medicare tax that they currently do not pay.  As we have said HERE - America’s highest earning American would see his tax bill increase by $114 million because of Obamacare.  It only affects the very well off.

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