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Replacing existing subsidies with tax credits does save the government money, but only if the credits are less than the subsidies. Getting even less help with insurance bills isn't going to make it any easier for my friends or my patients to get health care. Under the new proposal, people who benefited from Medicaid expansion would continue to have good insurance coverage, but only until 2020. After that, who knows? (Robert Needlman, 3/8)

It’s still early in the replacement game for the Affordable Care Act, but not too soon to ask Sens. John McCain and Jeff Flake if they’re willing to strip 400,000 Arizona citizens of their health insurance. That’s what would happen if the Republican plan to scrap Obamacare eliminates the Medicaid expansion. (EJ Montini, 3/7)

Nearly four years later, the restoration and expansion of Medicaid is working exactly as supporters said it would: Patients are getting the right care in the right place; hospital uncompensated care has been reduced dramatically; health-care employers are hiring; and taxpayers are getting more for their money. Today, Arizona’s taxpayers, patients, employers and their workforce are well-served by a vibrant health-care sector that provides the highest quality care and contributes mightily to the state’s economy. Anyone who wants to undo that truly doesn’t know what they’re doing. (Linda Hunt and Todd Sanders, 3/7)

he Center on Budget and Policy Priorities states 526,000 Tennesseans could lose insurance coverage by 2019 with full ACA repeal. This will largely affect families dependent on marketplace subsidies, and will also jeopardize the 2.8 million Tennesseans who have pre-existing conditions. For patients like Shawn, that means the healthcare reform debate is truly life and death. Nearly 15 percent of adult Tennesseans have diabetes, and medical expenses for diabetics are 2.3 times higher than those without the disease. If they are insulin dependent, how will they pay for it to live another 24 hours? (David H. Gouger, 3/7)

The Republican plan doesn't exactly do away with the expansion of Medicaid that Maryland and about three dozen other states adopted. Doing so would have immediately cast millions off the insurance rolls. But what the GOP is proposing is actually more drastic in the long run. In Maryland, the state and federal government have traditionally split the costs of Medicaid 50-50. (In poorer states, the federal government picks up as much as 70 percent of the tab.) Under the ACA, the federal government initially covered all the costs to expand the program to people making up to 138 percent of the federal poverty line and after a phase-in period paid 90 percent. (3/7)

The current healthcare debate is therefore a battle between the natural rights of man versus the “common-wealth.” Those who favor the former feel a younger individual should be able to choose to not purchase health insurance. This lack of preventative care can with time lead to chronic illness, which they deal with as well as they economically can. Individuals with chronic illness spiral into increasing healthcare costs and decreasing coverage until they become sufficiently disabled for government care, with those costs passed on to all taxpayers. As a surgeon in Kentucky, I have witnessed the effects of lack of coverage. (Ronald C. Burgess, 3/7)

For alleged fiscal hawks, U.S. House Republicans are acting recklessly in their haste to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. It looks as if they will be voting without any scoring by the Congressional Budget Office. This will leave factors unknown that should reasonably dictate how representatives vote — how much this replacement will cost and how many Americans will be getting coverage, how many will be getting lesser coverage and how many are stripped of coverage. (3/7)

On Monday, House Republicans unveiled their Obamacare "replacement" plan, which they claim eliminates the individual mandate. Yet a provision of the bill allows insurance companies to increase rates by 30% on those who allow their policies to lapse but then re-apply for insurance when they need it. That sounds an awful lot like a mandate that identifies as an incentive. It is what Chicago poet Gwendolyn Brooks referred to as an "identical disguise." And it allows the GOP to claim credit for keeping all the people who were forced to sign up for health care under Obamacare. (Christian Schneider, 3/7)

Fewer Americans will have health insurance if the Republican alternative to the Affordable Care Act is enacted. That’s the crucial takeaway from the American Health Care Act, because it goes to the heart of the health and financial stability of everyday Americans. The consensus from analysts from both sides of the political divide is 10 million or more people will lose coverage under the plan, reversing a trend from the past few years that saw the nation reach its lowest uninsured rate ever. (3/7)