By Rick Larsen U.S. Representative
If there were a book on common sense for Congress, I am sure it would include a chapter on holding public committee hearings before voting on legislation. Trumpcare would be a perfect case study: Congressional Republicans found out on May 24, 20 days after ramming Trumpcare through the House, how awful this bill truly is.
Shortly after the House vote on Trumpcare, the nonpartisan scorekeeper for congressional legislation, the Congressional Budget Office, released its report detailing the Senate bill’s impact. If this legislation becomes law, 22 million more Americans will lose health insurance over the next decade, and $772 billion of critical federal health-care funding to states will be lost.
Under Trumpcare, states will have the power to forgo essential health benefits and make health care for individuals with preexisting conditions unaffordable. That means if you are one of the 25 percent of Washingtonians with a preexisting condition such as diabetes, cancer or heart disease, your premiums could increase dramatically.
In addition, insurers will be able to charge their oldest enrollees five times as much as their youngest.
What would this look like?
A 64-year-old making $26,500 a year could pay up to $16,100 out-of-pocket for insurance under Trumpcare. By comparison, under the Affordable Care Act, that individual only pays $1,700 out-of-pocket. No one can afford to spend more than half an annual salary on health care and nor should anyone have to, especially when the Affordable Care Act is working for so many people in Washington state.
After seven years of promising to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, Congressional Republicans, and now President Trump, are treating health-care reform as a political imperative rather than a serious problem that impacts the lives of millions of Americans and needs serious solutions.
Maybe that explains why Trumpcare received zero public hearings in the House or Senate. Or why Speaker Paul Ryan pushed Trumpcare to the House floor before the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office could evaluate the bill’s impact. Or why 13 Republican senators rewrote Trumpcare behind closed doors, without public hearings, female senators or their Democratic colleagues.
And let’s be honest — while the rewrite made slight changes, the Senate version does not solve any of the major problems in the House-passed Trumpcare bill.
Both versions would make detrimental cuts to Medicaid (a program that supports our nation’s most vulnerable communities) and significantly raise premiums and slash financial assistance for hard-working families – all to provide major tax cuts to the wealthy and big businesses.
Additionally, Trumpcare would eliminate vital protections for individuals with pre-existing conditions.
U.S. Rep. Rick Larsen represents Washington’s 2nd Congressional District.
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