He told the story of one of his patients who asked if he should begin weaning himself off of his treatment for addiction as soon as possible because he feared the Republican bill would cut it off and the treatment would disappear immediately. It’s the GOP that is divided.
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The House voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act on May 4, and began the process of implementing the American Health Care Act (AHCA).
The measure now resides in the U.S. Senate, where the outcome is far from certain.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell formed the negotiating team to take the lead on crafting health care legislation that can ultimately win the support of at least 50 of the chamber’s 52 Republicans.
The language of the bill could change as it moves through Congress, but the Chief of Emergency Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital, Dr. David Brown, said “as now written, the health care bill would, among other things, severely cut federal support for Medicaid programs and leave millions without any health insurance at all”.
In a letter to members of the Senate, LeaMond urged lawmakers to start from scratch.
“The state estimates that this plan would cost the state almost $7 billion a year in Medicaid funding, and more than two and a half million New Yorkers could be deprived of the coverage they need”, Brindisi continued.
The analysis said that even more than the 6.3 million cited have other types of conditions, such as asthma depression or hypertension, that could lead to a rise in premiums under AHCA, even though they were not declinable in the pre-ACA days. Our bill dismantles the taxes in Obamacare that have harmed our nation’s job creators, increased costs for patients, and given Americans fewer options.
The American Health Care Act would also allow insurance companies to charge older people five times more than younger people for the same policy.
Access Health also is feeling the fallout from the general public’s uncertainty about the future of health care. Under this new plan, states can get a waiver that would allow insurers to set prices based on how healthy a person is. That’s the way it works for auto and homeowner’s insurance. Our mortality rates are higher than in all other industrialized countries.
“We’re going to pay for it one way or another”, he said. “For (Republicans) to say it’s a disaster, they know it’s not”.
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The basic issue here is whether or not one believes that health care is a human right. A law that straddles those two diverging outlooks is indeed a challenge.
