New Health Repeal Shows GOP’s Reckless Disregard
for Our Lives
How cruel and inhumane
can a piece of legislation get?
The latest Republican
proposal to repeal health care – yes, GOP leaders are at it again – takes us to
a new low, with a revised version of repeal analysts are calling even more damaging than a “repeal-without-replace.”
Republican leaders in
the Senate are making a last-ditch effort to pass legislation that will throw
tens of millions of us off coverage – and they want to do it before September
30, so they can get away with repealing our care with only 50 votes.
And they’re gunning
for that deadline with their worst repeal bill to date.
The Worst Health Bill So Far
The main sponsors of
this new bill, Sen. Bill Cassidy and Sen. Lindsay Graham, have been busy
pitching their legislation as a friendlier, more moderate health care repeal
than the package the GOP tried and failed to pass in July.
But nothing could be
further from the truth.
For example, people with
disabilities could lose home health services they use to live independently.
The legislation
punishes people with pre-existing conditions. Insurers may be able to once
again jack up premiums based on health status, meaning a person with metastatic
cancer could be hit with a surcharge of as much as $142,650.
Insurers also could cut out essential benefits like maternity care.
Winners and Losers?
This repeal is a ticking time bomb. Cassidy-Graham ends Medicaid’s
expansion, and eliminates subsidies for individual coverage, replacing them
with smaller block grants to states that come with no guarantee of coverage –
and then disappear entirely after ten years.
And the cuts to Medicaid would
get even steeper by 2027.
Every state loses. There’s been talk of some
states “winning” and some states “losing” under the Cassidy-Graham bill.
But every state will lose big once the legislation’s time bomb goes
off after ten years – and that means tens of millions of people
losing health care, no matter where they live.
Virtually everyone who’s taken a close look at this bill thinks
it’s a disaster. Fitch Ratings deems it “more
disruptive for most states than prior Republican efforts,” and says it could
hurt not just health care but schools and colleges, too. The American College of Physicians, America’s Essential Hospitals, and others have issued
statements opposing the legislation.
In all, it’s estimated the bill
will strip coverage from 32 million people. So, it’s no wonder Republican
leadership wants to push the bill through, before the Congressional Budget Office can
complete a full official analysis. But, even without CBO
analysis, we know what we’re fighting against – and what we’re fighting for.
They’re Fighting Because We’re Fighting
Little more than a
year ago, Louisiana – the state Bill Cassidy represents – expanded Medicaid,
finally extending coverage to more than 433,000 Louisianans who’d previously
been shut out from health care.
That was a huge step
forward, and one Louisianans fought hard to win. Patients reportedly cried with relief when they found out they
could get the health care they needed so desperately, after going without for
so many years.
Cassidy’s bill will
now destroy any guarantee of coverage for them, which makes his push for this
bill, which he knows will harm his own constituents, unconscionable. But he’s
not alone. With so much at risk, the GOP leadership’s sudden race toward the
September 30 deadline is unfathomably reckless.
Reckless Disregard
Outrage over GOP
leaders’ reckless disregard for our lives has fueled opposition to their bid to
repeal health care ever since they began stumbling towards this heartless goal
back in January.
So far, the GOP has
used a patchwork of secrecy, lies, and strong-arming tactics to jam a bill –
seemingly, any bill – through Congress, as long as it funnels dollars away from
care and upward to rich donors and corporations.
We’ve held back this
bid for more than eight months. Along the way, we’ve seen increasing public
enthusiasm for protection of health care as a public good, and growing agreement
that health care should be recognized as a right for all.
Before It’s Too Late
If we’re terrified of
losing everything, the GOP is terrified, too. They see that support for a more
coherent and humane vision of health care is growing. That’s why they’re
dead-set on defunding, breaking and eliminating as much of our health care
system as they can, before it’s too late for them.
They’re worried that
in the long run, we will win.
And we will. But to
win, we have to keep fighting.