Congressman William Keating (D-Bourne)
WASHINGTON, DC – Senate Republicans have released their version of a new healthcare bill and Bourne Congressman William Keating is expressing concern over how the proposed legislation was developed.
Republican leaders in the Senate crafted the 142-page draft during weeks of closed door meetings.
The measure would cut and revamp Medicaid, the health care program for lower-income and disabled people, repeal tax increases on higher-income individuals and industry companies and end tax penalties for the uninsured.
“What’s happened in the House is probably what’s happening now in the Senate – more of an effort to see what you can get to get the votes you need then what the policy is and trying to get a final plan later on,” Keating said. “The difficulty in doing that in a very fragmented Republican caucus and conference, is I don’t know if they can get the consensus back together.”
Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is hoping to push the measure through the Senate next week. But its fate remains uncertain.
It faces uniform Democratic opposition. And at least a half-dozen Republicans — both conservatives and moderates — have complained about it.
Keating is also worried about the effect proposed healthcare changes in the House bill would have on Cape Cod.
“It hurts anyone over 50 to 64 years of age where they could be paying out of pocket costs which average $5,269 a year,” Keating said. “A person on Medicare who has prescription drug coverage – an additional average cost of $1,100 per year.”
Without a guarantee of pre-existing conditions the region could see issues from the opioid epidemic.
“[There are] no guarantees that there will be insurance coverage for that,” Keating said.
Keating said healthcare is probably the most important thing this Congress will work on.
“It’s my hope that we gear in on where we have to improve the existing plan,” Keating said. “We can improve it on lower prescription drug costs. We can improve it on better statewide competition for those states that do not have a competitive healthcare industry. We can do it by smoothing out the rates.”
“Taking a healthcare plan in one of the older districts demographically in the country that puts a crushing age tax on people who are old where they can be charged for their healthcare five times the amount that would be charges for younger people is unacceptable,” Keating said.
Four Republican senators say they are not ready to vote for the GOP health care bill, putting the measure in jeopardy.
The four are Ted Cruz of Texas, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, Mike Lee of Utah and Rand Paul of Kentucky. They say in a statement that they are open to negotiation before the full Senate considers the measure.
The four say there are provisions that are an improvement to the current health care system. But they add that the measure fails to accomplish what they have promised to their constituents, “to repeal Obamacare and lower their health care costs.”
Medical groups are beginning to weigh in on the Senate Republican health care bill, and they have problems with the proposal.
The American Academy of Pediatrics says the bill would hurt children by scaling back Medicaid. Its president, Dr. Fernando Stein, says the plan was crafted without input from pediatricians and “would tear down” the progress the nation has made by achieving insurance coverage for 95 percent of children.
America’s Essential Hospitals, which represents more than 300 safety-net health facilities, says the version the Senate released Thursday “might be worse overall” than the House legislation and might lead to hospitals reducing services or closing.
The Association of American Medical Colleges says the Senate plan would leave millions of people without health coverage, and others with only bare-bones insurance plans.
Former President Barack Obama says the Senate’s GOP-written health care bill will cause millions of families to lose health care coverage.
The former president issued a statement on his Facebook page as Senate Republicans unveiled a plan to dismantle Obama’s signature presidential achievement.
Obama called Senate Republicans’ health care bill a “massive transfer of wealth from middle-class and poor families to the richest people in America.” He also says it “hands enormous tax cuts to the rich and to the drug and insurance industries, paid for by cutting health care for everybody else.”
The former president says amending the GOP-written bill “cannot change the fundamental meanness at the core of this legislation.”
Obama says he hopes there are “enough Republicans in Congress who remember that public service is not about sport or notching a political win.”
By BRIAN MERCHANT, CapeCod.com NewsCenter
Material from the Associated Press was used in this article.
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