“President Trump promised not to touch Medicaid and Medicare, yet Trumpcare would mean cuts in nursing home care for seniors, fewer services for individuals with disabilities and a shaky financial footing for Medicare, which will open the door to the Republican scheme to end the guaranteed benefit of Medicare by turning it into a voucher program.”
Governor Tom Wolf agreed.
“This plan does not fix the Affordable Care Act—it would just delay the Republican plan to cut coverage for nearly a million Pennsylvanians, including those who were able to access quality, affordable healthcare after I expanded Medicaid two years ago,” said Wolf.
“It will eliminate healthcare coverage for middle class families while encouraging insurance companies to increase executive salaries. This is a bad plan that would leave thousands of Pennsylvania seniors and families unable to afford access to basic medical care coverage.”
The ACA, however, is not living up to its promise of affordability. Several states have already approved double-digit rate increases for 2017, including, for example, more than 30 percent in Pennsylvania, more than 40 percent in West Virginia and more than 50 percent in Minnesota.
As of August, 16 of Obamacare’s 23 state exchanges had failed and major insurers are also dropping out. Aetna dropped out last year and Humana announced in February it would leave at the end of the year.
So, while many agree something must be done, they also agree that Ryancare isn’t it. Republican U.S. Sens. Rand Paul and Ted Cruz have declared it DOA in the senate.
“Failure is not an option. If Republicans take this opportunity and blow it, we will rightly be considered a laughing stock,” Cruz said. “We have the opportunity to do an enormous amount of good. Now, we could screw it up. We could very easily screw it up.”
As of this writing, Ryan is said to be “tweeking” the bill to get enough votes to push it through the House. It remains to be seen whether that tweeking works.
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