– Leading U.S. bishops have applauded pro-life provisions in the newest GOP health care proposal, but said that substantial changes are needed in other areas to make the bill morally acceptable.
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The earlier bills to replace Obamacare failed because they would have cost an estimated 23 million people their coverage. That criteria includes respect for life and dignity; honoring conscience rights; access for all; and a high-quality plan that is affordable and comprehensive. In 1965, America agreed to take care of the poor and the elderly through Medicaid and Medicare. If three Republican senators oppose the bill, it will die.
But the bill allows a state that turned down extra federal funds to expand Medicaid under Obama’s statute to count the rejected money in determining how large its block grant will be, analysts say. The block grants could drastically change what states receive.
Even if the Graham-Cassidy bill doesn’t survive the rush to pass it before the fiscal year ends at the end of September, the legislation can resurface in the next fiscal year.
MA has the highest rate of insured people in the nation, with 97.5 percent of residents having either private, employer or government-backed medical coverage past year, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
The Cassidy-Graham bill is really, really bad. The block grant would be too small to allow Medicaid expansion states to provide ACA-levels of health coverage without new, state-created sources of revenue. If states wanted to keep providing people with coverage, they’d have to cut funding for schools or other non-Medicaid services or raise taxes significantly. Many have already pulled back due to steep losses and trouble attracting enough healthy people. The ACA requires insurers to cover pre-existing conditions without charging more.
So who is against Cassidy-Graham besides Democrats?
About 22 percent of all Minnesotans are on Medicaid. People with disabilities or chronic diseases, people who have had cancer, and parents of children born with health problems like late-night host Jimmy Kimmel say that could make insurance unaffordable.
Another 945,500 Kentuckians – the state’s poorest and most vulnerable citizens – are covered by traditional Medicaid.
“Second, the cost of some essential health care benefits-including maternity care, contraception, certain prescription drugs, mental health care, and rehabilitative treatment-could become prohibitively expensive for most Americans”. Federal funding for both community health centers and CHIP, which provides health care for 350,000 children in IL through the All Kids program, will run out at the end of this week.
The Congressional Budget Office hasn’t weighed in on the bill yet, but has announced that it expects to provide a preliminary assessment of it next week.
“Your constituents, especially those with no voice of their own in this process, deserve no less”, they concluded. Instead of repealing health care, Durbin is calling on Congress to work together on a bipartisan basis to improve our health care system and to reauthorize funding for our nation’s community health centers and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) before both programs’ funding expires on October 1. Because of the Affordable Care Act, Smith explained, there would be 15 million more added to that number. Personally, I do. I think everybody should have access and health care financing…
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Panel members also spoke about the future of health care in the United States.
