The Healthy Indiana Plan, or "HIP 2.0," is funded
by the expansion of Medicaid under Obamacare.
The program was created as an alternative health
insurance program to the Affordable Care Act by
then-governor Mike Pence. His successor Governor
Eric Holcomb, Indiana House Speaker Brian Bosma
and others have expressed the need to preserve
that expanded Medicaid funding for the state
under any replacement health care legislation.
HIP 2.0 has given access to health insurance to
more than 350,000 Hoosiers, and its
disappearance would have disastrous
consequences.
I personally have mixed feelings
about Obamacare - on the one hand, it did ensure
insurance for everyone. On the other hand, it
offered limited choices and was not truly
"affordable." The Affordable Care Act
also didn't do enough to stop prescription price gouging, as was seen in the
whole EpiPen debacle. Also premiums and deductibles have been going up at a much
higher rate each year after the A.C.A. was enacted.
As for the Trump/Ryan
plan, I don't think it will be much of an improvement, as Trump is not the
populist he'd like us to believe he is. His draconian budget proposals to cut
virtually every social program are inhumane and appalling to say the least. While
Obama may have been something of a starry-eyed dreamer who fumbled the details,
Trump is definitely the flip side of that coin, and something far worse: a
person who could care less about anyone's well-being. He's way too wrapped
up in his own paranoid and petty concerns like inaugural crowd sizes and
childish celebrity feuds.