To understand the winners and losers from Trumpcare you have to look no further than Secretary of Health and Human Services Dr. Tom Price’s stock portfolio. “Dr. Trumpcare” doesn’t have any stock in the American people.
Confirming this yesterday, the Congressional Budget Office released their estimate of the Senate’s Trumpcare bill, and the results are just as deadly as Americans have feared—and even meaner than the House version that Trump himself called “mean.”
According to one analysis, around “17,000 people could die in 2018 who otherwise would have lived if a House Republican health proposal endorsed by the Trump administration becomes law. By 2026, the number of people killed by Trumpcare could grow to approximately 29,000 in that year alone.”
The Senate Trumpcare bill would cause 22 million Americans to lose their health care over the next decade—including 15 million in the next year alone. Premiums for low- and middle-income seniors just below Medicare eligibility age would increase dramatically. At the same time, health care plans would no longer be required to cover essential health care benefits or individuals with pre-existing conditions. The result is that millions of Americans would either see their health care costs go up, or be left with skimpy plans that will be worthless when they most need care.
The bill would also destroy Medicaid as we know it, by stripping $772 billion in federal funding over the next decade and putting in place longer term cuts that AARP’s policy experts estimate could snowball to as much as $4 trillion by 2036. Furthermore, the bill would raid billions of dollars from Medicare—just to provide a massive tax giveaway to millionaires and billionaires.
All of this is especially bad news for seniors and people with disabilities. Medicaid is the largest provider of long-term care for seniors and people with disabilities, and covers 60 percent of all nursing home patients. Indeed, Medicaid will only be more important to seniors in the coming years—an estimated 70 percent of Americans ages 65 and older will one day need long-term care, which is not covered by Medicare.
The GOP purports that its Medicaid provisions would give states flexibility. But in reality, states would be forced to cut their Medicaid spending—either by restricting eligibility, reducing payments to doctors and hospitals, or restricting the kinds of care and services covered. Given that coverage for seniors and people with disabilities accounts for the majority of Medicaid spending, there would simply be no way for states to enforce the bill’s strict Medicaid provisions without cutting their care.
Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan didn’t just stumble into this terrible bill in some well-intentioned attempt to improve the U.S. health care system and ensure that Americans of all ages and income levels can afford critical and life-saving health care coverage. Instead, the GOP’s leadership, motivated by a relentless anti-government ideology and market fundamentalism, have no other goal than to destroy Medicaid, radically undermine Medicare, and cut taxes for millionaires and billionaires—regardless of how many low- and middle-Americans would be left poorer and sicker as a result.
Now that they have an anti-Obamacare president who has abandoned his promises to protect Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, and a Health and Human Services secretary who has proposed even more harmful health care legislation, Trumpcare’s architects feel empowered to make their cruel health care vision a reality, despite the massive opposition from their constituents. Indeed, recent polling shows that Americans strongly oppose Trumpcare.
Americans are understandably tired of having to tell their senators what should be obvious: that they don’t want a cruel bill that will increase health care costs and reduce coverage for tens of millions of Americans to become law. But despite the clear and public opposition, Mitch McConnell is intent on holding a vote on his terrible Trumpcare bill.
But we can beat this monstrosity. We only need three Republican senators to stand with the American people over Wall Street, Big Insurance and the drug corporations. Senators Susan Collins, Dean Heller, Rand Paul and Ron Johnson have currently indicated that they will probably vote no — we need to hold them to it, and find more senators to vote no.
Below are some of the Republican senators who, for a variety of reasons, might vote no on Trumpcare. If one of them represents your state, call today! And again tomorrow! And the next day! Ask your friends and family in those states to call as well. Don’t stop calling, and getting others to call, until the bill is defeated!
The two most likely to vote no:
Lisa Murkowski (Alaska): 202-224-6665, 907-271-3735
Shelley Moore Capito (West Virginia): 202-224-6472, 304-347-5372
Others:
Dan Sullivan (Alaska): 202-224-3004, 907-271-5915
Jeff Flake (Arizona): 202-224-4521, 602-840-1891
Tom Cotton (Arkansas): 202-224-2353, 479-751-0879
Cory Gardner (Colorado): 202-224-5941, 303-391-5777
Todd Young (Indiana): 202-224-5623, 317-226-6700
Rand Paul (Kentucky): 202-224-4343, 270-782-8303
Bill Cassidy (Louisiana): 202-224-5824, 225-929-7711
Susan Collins (Maine): 202-224-2523, 207-780-3575
Dean Heller (Nevada): 202-224-6244, 702-388-6605
Rob Portman (Ohio): 202-224-3353, 614-469-6774
Pat Toomey (Pennsylvania): 202-224-4254, 412-803-3501
Ron Johnson (Wisconsin): 202-224-5323, 414-276-7282