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Full Title: Sen. Cassidy's Obamacare repeal bill gets blasted by the health secretary of his home state
A scathing and deserved broadside at Sen. Cassidy by the Health Secretary of his home state of Louisiana. Senators Cassidy and Graham have [purposefully] introduced this Cassidy-Graham bill at a late date which will prevent the Congressional Budget Office from having the time necessary to fully study the bill and deliver solid data on its merits and demerits. Healthcare analysts who have reviewed the bill characterize it as worse that the previous failed GOP Senate attempts the Better Care Reconciliation Act and the 'skinny BCRA'. It is critical for success that Cassidy-Graham is voted on in the next week when only 50 Senate GOP votes (including VP Pence if necessary) are required to pass the measure. After September 30, 60 Senate votes will be necessary to pass the bill. This is yet another GOP repeal & replace bill with no Democrat input whatsoever. GOP Senators Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, and Rand Paul are expected no votes. Sen. John McCain may again vote no because like the other GOP healthcare attempts, this measure also falls short of his principles to “hold hearings, receive input from members of both parties, and heed the recommendations of our nation's governors” on healthcare.
Bipartisan group of governors ask Senate to reject Graham-Cassidy Obamacare repeal
Repeal and replace is back, and scarier than ever
By Michael Hiltzik
September 19, 2017
Senators Bill Cassidy of Louisiana (L) and Lindsay Graham of South Carolina (R).
Senate Republicans are preparing to vote on their last-gasp Affordable Care Act repeal bill without estimates from the Congressional Budget Office of its effects on the deficit, health insurance coverage, or premiums. So someone else has to step in to inform the senators of the measure’s grim consequences. Enter Rebekah Gee, the secretary of the Department of Health in Louisiana—which happens to be the home state of the measure’s chief sponsor, Sen. Bill Cassidy. In a letter to Cassidy dated Monday, Gee offers chapter and verse on how the bill would cut health coverage for 433,000 of Cassidy’s constituents enrolled in Medicaid expansion; eliminate protection for people with pre-existing medical conditions, driving many of them into the “increasingly battered and tattered safety net of public assistance”; and threaten the health of “the unborn and their mothers.” Like all the GOP repeal proposals before it, Gee wrote, Cassidy’s bill “uniquely and disproportionately hurts Louisiana due to our recent expansion and high burden of extreme poverty.” Gee calculates that the bill’s elimination of expansion and capping of federal funding to states would cost Louisiana $3.2 billion through 2026, making Louisiana the eighth biggest loser among all states, “and by far the poorest and sickest state affected by these cuts.” That’s a major threat to “critical access and care for our most vulnerable Medicaid populations including the disabled, children, and pregnant women,” Gee wrote.
Gee’s broadside isn’t unique—virtually every responsible healthcare expert and medical organization has said much the same, as has the fiscal analysis firm Fitch Ratings, which judged the measure “more disruptive for most states than prior Republican efforts.” As many as 32 million Americans could lose their health coverage, according to legislative analyses—far more than under previous GOP repeal bills. Cassidy, like Gee a physician, hardly needs to be reminded of the effects of his bill, which is dubbed Cassidy-Graham to acknowledge the co-sponsorship of Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.). If he cared, he wouldn’t have introduced it in the first place. Yet the Republican Senate caucus appears determined to push the bill through without even the semblance of considered discussion. The Congressional Budget Office informed the Senators on Monday that it would be able to produce only “a preliminary assessment” of the measure early next week, but would need at least several weeks more to provide specific estimates of “the effects on the deficit, health insurance coverage, or premiums.” That would place the CBO analysis past the Sept. 30 deadline for the Senate to pass the bill on a reconciliation basis, which requires only 50 votes plus a tie-breaker by Vice President Mike Pence. After that, the bill would need 60 votes to overcome a certain filibuster by Democrats.
A scathing and deserved broadside at Sen. Cassidy by the Health Secretary of his home state of Louisiana. Senators Cassidy and Graham have [purposefully] introduced this Cassidy-Graham bill at a late date which will prevent the Congressional Budget Office from having the time necessary to fully study the bill and deliver solid data on its merits and demerits. Healthcare analysts who have reviewed the bill characterize it as worse that the previous failed GOP Senate attempts the Better Care Reconciliation Act and the 'skinny BCRA'. It is critical for success that Cassidy-Graham is voted on in the next week when only 50 Senate GOP votes (including VP Pence if necessary) are required to pass the measure. After September 30, 60 Senate votes will be necessary to pass the bill. This is yet another GOP repeal & replace bill with no Democrat input whatsoever. GOP Senators Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, and Rand Paul are expected no votes. Sen. John McCain may again vote no because like the other GOP healthcare attempts, this measure also falls short of his principles to “hold hearings, receive input from members of both parties, and heed the recommendations of our nation's governors” on healthcare.
Bipartisan group of governors ask Senate to reject Graham-Cassidy Obamacare repeal
Repeal and replace is back, and scarier than ever