With all the manipulations, bold faced lies, and the desperate desire to erase the work of a Black President, too many of today’s GOP are making Judas Iscariot look like a patsy who sold out Jesus for chump change.
Today’s GOP is willing to sell out millions of lives, our lives and the lives of our loved ones, in order to give the fortunate few even more of our tax dollars — monies for which GOP Senators and Representatives will be richly rewarded.
So we watch the spin and lies, the threats and bribery, as they attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act with hubristic cruelty.
If the GOP succeeds in gutting protections for those with pre-existing conditions, people are going to die. Many more will suffer — physically, emotionally, and financially.
...Outside experts, however, question how strong these protections actually are. For one thing, there is no definition in the bill of what counts as "affordable" coverage. This would largely be left up to future bureaucrats in Washington to decide.
"You could stretch the definition pretty broadly of what counts," says Sloan. "Maybe you fund a high-risk pool that only allows in some number of people, and that counts. It's a pretty wide space."
What's more, that language does not outlaw discrimination against sick patients. An individual with a history of asthma, for example, could see health insurance plans that want to charge her 10 percent more because they expect she'll have higher health care costs…..
Our loved ones and fellow Americans with pre-existing conditions could be priced out of health care completely. Under Graham-Cassidy, premiums for people with pre-existing conditions will explode.
No one will be safe from the destruction the Graham-Cassidy ACA Repeal bill will inflict upon the country.
Like Other ACA Repeal Bills, Cassidy-Graham Plan Would Add Millions to Uninsured, Destabilize Individual Market
...Cassidy-Graham cuts health coverage in two ways: first, by undoing the ACA’s major coverage expansions through a block grant, and second, by radically restructuring and cutting the entire Medicaid program. The bill would eliminate the ACA’s Medicaid expansion and marketplace subsidies starting in 2020, offering in their place only a smaller, temporary block grant that states could use for health coverage or any other health care purposes, with no guarantee of coverage or financial assistance for individuals…
...
First and foremost, this is because the block grant funding would be insufficient to maintain coverage levels equivalent to the ACA. The block grant would provide $239 billion less between 2020 and 2026 than projected federal spending for the Medicaid expansion and marketplace subsidies under current law. In 2026, block grant funding would be at least $41 billion (17 percent) below projected levels under the ACA. These figures do not include the cuts resulting from the bill’s Medicaid per capita cap, discussed below, which would cut Medicaid funding outside of the ACA’s Medicaid expansion by an estimated $39 billion in 2026.
These estimates understate the actual cuts to federal funding for health coverage in another way as well. Under current law, federal funding for the Medicaid expansion and marketplace subsidies automatically adjusts to account for enrollment increases due to recessions or for higher costs due to public health emergencies, new breakthrough treatments, demographic changes, or other cost pressures. In contrast, the Cassidy-Graham block grant amounts would be fixed — they wouldn’t adjust for the higher costs states would face due to these factors. Faced with a recession, for example, states would have to either dramatically increase their own spending on health care or, as is far more likely, deny help to people losing their jobs and their health insurance….
Personal bankruptcies caused by medical costs will soar again. Far too many jobs will be lost and the economy affected. As rural hospitals close, rural communities will be decimated. Emergency rooms will be pushed past capacity and health care workers will burn out under an unsupportable load.
Homes across the country will know the soul destroying despair of watching loved ones suffer and die, while knowing it all was preventable.
The Death Merchants of the GOP don’t care about any of it. Not what happens to you or me, our families or fellow citizens.
They are committed to legislative murder and must be stopped.
Make phone calls. The number to the Senate switch board is - 1-(202) 224-3121. Call their local offices as well. If you don’t, they’ll think you either don’t care or have given up. And that’s what they want. Don’t give it to them. Burn the phone lines down.
Show up at your Senator’s office. Attend rallies. March. Raise your voices. Hold main stream media accountable for their false equivalences, normalization of the morally reprehensible, and cowardice.
We must stop this obscenity of a bill. Then we must do everything to get the Death Merchants out of office. 2018 is coming quickly.
This is our time, our moral responsibility to fight back with everything we have.
We hold millions of lives in our hands. We hold our lives and the lives of our loved ones in our hands. We must not allow them to be taken away.
This is not politics as usual. All the norms we understood have been bent out of all recognition.
This is a battle we can not lose in a war we must win. Call your Senators and Representatives. Then have family and friends call. Share your health care stories. Let’s light em up. We can do this!