By Rick Larsen
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.
Three weeks after the House vote on Trumpcare, the nonpartisan scorekeeper for congressional legislation, the Congressional Budget Office, released its report detailing the bill’s impacts. If this legislation becomes law, 23 million Americans will lose health insurance over the next decade and $834 billion of critical federal health care funding to states will be lost. In short, Trumpcare is a real loser.
Under Trumpcare, states will have the power to forgo essential health benefits and make health care for individuals with pre-existing conditions unaffordable. That means if you are one of the 25 percent of Washingtonians with a pre-existing condition such as diabetes, cancer or pregnancy, 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.
Trumpcare would devastate people like 63-year-old “Kay” from San Juan Island, who is one of the nearly 1,000 Washingtonians who shared their story at www.larsen.house.gov/shareyourstory. Kay signed up for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act three years ago, and last year experienced “a serious heart condition for the first time.” Thanks to the Affordable Care Act she “obtained care at Peace Health in Friday Harbor and at St. Joseph’s in Bellingham” — care she would not have received otherwise.
After a year of public bipartisan Congressional hearings and input from more than 15,000 of my constituents (including the thousands of passionate folks who attended a town hall I held at Everett Memorial Stadium), I was proud to vote for the Affordable Care Act in 2009.
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 affects 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 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 hardworking 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.
As it stands today, five Senate Republicans oppose the Senate bill. So while Trumpcare would not be able to pass through the Senate today, that could change as Majority Leader Mitch McConnell attempts to force a Senate vote before the July 4 recess.
Health care is not just a political problem for Congressional Republicans and the President. Health care is a determining factor in Americans’ quality of life and a pillar of the U.S. economy (in 2016 health care spending accounted for nearly one-fifth of U.S. GDP, according to the Center for Medicare &Medicaid Services). With so much at stake, the only responsible course of action is for Democrats and Republicans to work together to improve the quality of care, expand comprehensive coverage, and lower costs.
To date, Congressional Republicans’ effort to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act with Trumpcare has been sloppy, secretive and partisan. The best information available from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office shows Trumpcare will hurt people who rely on the essential protections the ACA provides, and result in 23 million more Americans losing health insurance. As health care policy and as an approach to governing, it could not be more clear that Trumpcare lacks common sense.
U.S. Rep. Rick Larsen represents Washington’s 2nd Congressional District.
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