wheeliewifee:

I attended a local event today, and spoke with staffers for senators Hatch and Lee about concerns over:

1. implementing Medicaid per-capita caps that will slash funding for disabled and low-income people to the tune of at least 880 billion dollars

2. switching to a continuous coverage policy that will punish sick people who are more likely than healthy peers to go 63 days without insurance, while simultaneously being desperate enough need healthcare to pay the 30% fee

3. cutting the essential health benefits requirement, which covers 1.3 million Americans with mental health disabilities who will be left without necessary care

these proposed measures, among many others, will cause out-of-pocket costs to soar and cause 24 million people to lose coverage by 2026–14 million of those NEXT YEAR.

these drastic financial cuts, and the massive number of Americans losing insurance will have unpredictable and dangerous consequences.

40% of people in the US have at least one chronic illness. 20% are disabled.
so it stands to reason that at least 40% of those losing access to medical and psychiatric care will have health needs. they will be sick.

this is going to kill people.

yet, the senate staffers were mostly silent. they repeated the line “we look forward to a robust debate on the floor” a few times…

they told us that they know illness doesn’t discriminate between political party, and I reminded them that it doesn’t discriminate between tax bracket either.

I mentioned that a 64-year-old earning $26,000 per year is just as likely to get sick as a millionaire, yet she’s now paying half her income in premiums under the AHCA, while the millionaire is going to see that $13,000 in a tax cut.

they changed the subject.