The Senate Health Care Bill Is Crueler Than You Ever Imagined

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The Senate Health Care Bill Is Crueler Than You Ever Imagined
The House plan to replace Obamacare was heartless. The Senate plan is even worse.
By Nish Weiseth Jun 24, 2017

When the House of Representatives released their version of an Obamacare repeal, the American Health Care Act (AHCA), in May, many people were certain it couldn’t get much worse. Surely, the GOP could not outdo their heartlessness on health care reform. But then the Senate released their version of the repeal plan, the Better Care and Reconciliation Act (BCRA), and it was as if someone dared them to be even more horrible than their colleagues and they accepted the challenge.

In short, this bill is immoral, heartless, and cruel. It is an assault to anyone who is poor, disabled, sick, a woman, mentally ill, may become sick, pregnant or may become pregnant, elderly, substance-addicted or in recovery. Many argue it’s even worse than the House version.

One of the key ways the Senate bill differs from the House bill is it takes the already severe cuts to Medicaid and goes further.

Arguably, the people these cuts would hit the worst are the disabled and the elderly. Medicaid currently covers 30 percent of all adults with disabilities and 60 percent of children with disabilities.

While disabled and elderly individuals make up a minority of Medicaid enrollment, they require a majority of Medicaid spending – about 63 percent goes toward disability and age-related care. People with disabilities could lose access to therapies and services, mobility aids, medical services provided in public schools, and in-home care, which allows them to live more independently and stay out of institutional care.

And while Medicaid currently covers 64 percent of all nursing home residents (Medicare, the healthcare system for those 65 and older, does not cover long-term age related care like nursing homes or Alzheimer’s facilities), this type of coverage clearly would not be possible at reduced funding levels.

The BCRA could also decimate the working poor in America. The GOP plan ties their tax credit to less expensive plans that would cover 58 percent of your health care costs. This would result in much higher copayments and deductibles, which poor families can’t afford. In short, the working poor are expected to pay the same amount or more on health insurance that would get them less coverage.

Beyond the Medicaid cuts, the Senate bill includes other provisions that would put health care out of reach for so many Americans. Under Obamacare, insurance companies were no longer allowed to deny applicants access to insurance based on preexisting conditions. While the Senate bill still requires insurance companies to accept all applicants, even if they have a preexisting condition, it doesn’t mean the insurance companies have to provide them coverage for those conditions. It’s a weird language loophole that lets insurance companies off the hook.

And because the Senate bill allows states to waive the requirement that insurers to cover “essential health benefits,"a list that includes everything from pediatric services to chronic disease management, companies may have the freedom to deny you coverage based on your health, or just charge you more if you have a preexisting condition.

Needless to say, the Better Care and Reconciliation Act is giving Americans anything but better care. It not only guts access to vital health services to the poor, elderly, disabled and more, it gives a massive tax cut to the rich and corporations. It’s like reverse Robin Hood – steal from the poor and give to the rich.

And Rev. Dr. William Barber, the chair of the NAACP’s Legislative Political Action Committee, founder of Moral Mondays, and a prominent faith leader in resisting the Trump administration, called the fight for health care “a fight for the soul of America.” He went on to say, “You’ve not seen this kind of attack on poor people and poor bodies since the days black people were used to make free money as slaves.”

This is from the party that, for generations, has positioned itself as the party of family values, and a vehemently pro-life party. With the revealing of the Senate’s health care bill, it’s become clear that they don’t actually care about people’s lives at all and certainly not the most vulnerable among us.

Right when you think Republicans couldn’t possibly be anymore heartless, hypocritical, and callous, they go and do something like this and totally redeem themselves.


http://www.cosmopolitan.com/politics/a10209656/senate-health-care-bill-bcra-heartless-republicans/