Health Care

HARRISBURG – Marc Stier, Director of the PA Budget and Policy Center, made the following statement following the failure of the Senate GOP health care bill and last night's decision by Senator Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to seek a repeal of the Affordable Care Act without an immediate replacement:

“The Failure of the Republican plan to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, which would make drastic reductions to the Medicaid programs, is welcome news to all Pennsylvanians.  We will be watching closely to ensure that this bill remains dead. We can celebrate a victory today for all those who won’t be hurt by the Republican plan: the 1.2 million Pennsylvanians who won’t lose their insurance; the thousands of Pennsylvanians each year who won’t die prematurely; the 40,000 Pennsylvanians who won’t lose their jobs; the tens of thousands of Pennsylvanians who won’t lose their place in a nursing home; and all those who are dependent on hospitals and clinics that would have closed.

The latest draft of the Senate health care bill shows that the critics of the previous bill were right. Changes have been made that are meant to address four problems we saw in the bill: reductions in subsidies for insurance on the marketplaces that would make insurance unaffordable for many; the ultimate elimination of the Medicaid expansion that insures so many Pennsylvanians; a fundamental restructuring of traditional Medicaid that would lead to huge cuts to benefits and eligibility; and massive tax cuts for the very rich. But while the new bill feints in the direction of fixing the problems in the last version, it only provides a small band-aid on the deep, open wound that the original bill would create.