The following are excerpts from a recent article by David Lazarus, LA Times.

Republican lawmakers are stll determined to roll back Obamacare, deny coverage to millions, limit treatment for the poor and essentially hand Medicare over to private insurers.

Obamacare is not perfect. It will not cover everyone and it doesn’t do enough to reduce medical costs. But here’s what it’s accomplished so far.

• Created a system to extend coverage to about 30 million of the roughly 50 million people in this country now without insurance.
• Provided coverage to about 2.5 million young people who are able to remain on their parents’ insurance policies until age 26.
• Laid the groundwork for preventing insurers from denying coverage to people with preexisting medical conditions or from canceling people’s policies after they get sick.
• Set in motion an overhaul of insurance reimbursements to reward doctors for keeping people healthy rather than profiting only when people require costly tests or hospitalization.

Not only would the Republican budget plan take away all these advances, but it would also drastically cut spending for Medicaid, the insurance program for low-income people. The Urban Institute estimated last year that the GOP’s approach could reduce Medicaid enrollment by half.