Now Republicans Must Stop Trump’s Sabotage by Ensuring Cost Sharing Reduction Payments Are Made or Hold the Bag for Skyrocketing Premiums
Before it has even been introduced, the latest desperate attempt at health care repeal from Republicans is dead on arrival according to Republican Senators. The repeal proposal from Senators Graham, Cassidy and Heller was the most vicious bill yet and can’t seem to get the support from members of their own party. Sen. Hatch gave the possibility of a vote on the bill a firm, “No” on Monday. Sen. Rand Paul said the bill “sounds to me like a bad idea.” The bill proposes the same deeply unpopular provisions of previous repeal bills, including deep cuts to Medicaid, ending federal funding for Medicaid Expansion states, eliminating payments to help lower out-of-pocket costs and deductibles for lower-income individuals, and increasing out-of-pocket costs for people with pre-existing conditions. The bill would also disproportionately hurt states that expanded Medicaid over states that did not.
“The now dead Graham-Cassidy-Heller bill would have been the worst of all the partisan health care bills Senate Republicans have pursued to date — worse even than those that were already soundly rejected by the American people,” said Protect Our Care Campaign Director Brad Woodhouse. “Now is the time for Republicans to finally abandon these failed, partisan repeal efforts and work toward bipartisan solutions to improve health care like immediately making good on the cost-sharing reduction payments to prevent premiums from skyrocketing for Americans by twenty percent and provide much-needed certainty to the health care market. If Republicans don’t quickly stand up to Trump’s sabotage and ensure these payments are made, they will be to blame when the premiums rise, coverage lapses occur and the debt explodes by $200 billion.”