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GOP health plans would leave rural Coloradans paying more, new report says

Republican plan would cut parts of current healthcare law that help small towns and shift benefits to big cities

By John Ingold / The Denver Post

A new report released this month argues that Republican proposals to remake the nation’s health care system would hurt rural Coloradans by cutting parts of the current law that help small towns and by shifting benefits to big cities.

Which is exactly what Tony Adkins, a geologist who lives in Nucla, has been worrying about lately.

Adkins and his wife receive generous subsidies under current law to buy health insurance in their county on the Western Slope, where plans can be among the priciest in the country. Without those subsidies, Adkins says he and his wife would have to pay $25,000 a year for coverage.

The GOP proposals, though, reduce those subsidies. The plan that Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives passed this year — called the American Health Care Act — and the version that the Senate unveiled Thursday — called the Better Care Reconciliation Act — do this differently. But the effect would be the same: People in areas where health insurance costs a lot to buy would have to shoulder more costs themselves.

Read the full story on The Denver Post website, click here.


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