Why are so many people against the new American Health Care Act? originally appeared on Quora - the place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and better understand the world.
Answer by Alyssa Satara, Human Rights Advocate. Social Innovator, on Quora:
2 reasons the GOP failed to repeal and replace Obamacare
Over the last 7 years, Republicans have vowed to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare). This promise was pivotal in Trump's presidential campaign. So why—now that the Republican Party has a majority control over the house—did the GOP fail to repeal and replace Obamacare?
Simply put: the bill didn’t get enough Republican votes in the Senate.
By the end of last week, two Republican senators, Susan Collins from Maine and Rand Paul of Kentucky, had publicly announced their opposition to the bill. This meant that if only one more senator opposed the bill, it would be denied.
Yesterday two senators, Mike Lee from Utah and Jerry Moran from Kansas, jointly and publicly announced that they could not support the bill.
These two senators stood together to oppose the GOP’s health care bill, but their reasoning differed from one another. They addressed two different points, that had been previously vocalized by other senators and US citizens.
Reason #1: The Senate's concerns about the effects of the bill would have a negative impact on more vulnerable American citizens
While the newest GOP health care bill was an improvement from the previous proposals, it still would have left millions of Americans without healthcare.
Initially, the GOP’s first drafts of the bill lacked support due to its displeasing regulations (for example: categorizing rape as a preexisting condition) that made it hard for either party to support the legislation. Later versions of the bill continued to concern the senate, as it cut trillions of dollars to the US healthcare system.
This bill made massive cuts to medicaid, and allowed states to stop providing many of the benefits enforced by the Affordable Care Act, such as emergency services, maternity care and mental health treatment.
In a public statement, Senator Lee stated he could not sign off on this legislation as it did not repeal enough of the Obamacare taxes, and that this bill “…didn’t go far enough in lowering premiums for middle class families.” He also explained that the GOP’s health care bill didn’t allow freedom from the more costly regulations associated with Obamacare.
Reason #2: This legislation was bad policy for the US government and its citizens
This bill didn’t succeed because it failed to address a glaring issue: the rising cost of healthcare.
When the most recent version of the bill was first introduced, multiple Republican senators opposed it, explaining that (at its current state) the bill did not lower healthcare costs.
Ultimately, Senator Moran opposed the bill saying, “We should not put our stamp of approval on bad policy.”
The majority of the Senate agreed that the GOP health care bill was just that—bad policy—which why the legislation failed to go through.
While I discussed the GOP’s new health care bills failure from a view of why the republican party did not want to sign off on it, I think it’s extremely important to point out that no democratic senators voted for this bill.
This bill was voted out because there was an overwhelming consensus that the GOP’s health care bill would hurt, not help, Americans.
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