Call Congress to stop latest health care attack

WASHINGTON, D.C. (Sept. 18, 2017) — They’re ba-ack.

Republicans in the U.S. Senate are making a last-ditch attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act before the Sept. 30 deadline to do so through a simple majority party-line vote. The Graham-Cassidy bill is being marketed as a “moderate” approach, but it is just as cruel as the GOP’s previous failed efforts. It will cause tens of millions of Americans to lose health insurance coverage, allow insurers to charge much more for the elderly and people with pre-existing conditions, and slash billions from Medicaid.

TAKE A STAND: Please make some calls today! As Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) tweeted yesterday, we need to call the U.S. Capitol at 202-224-3121 and leave messages for both Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell, and also for your Representative, particularly if it’s one of the four Republicans from Washington state: Reps. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, Dave Reichert, Jaime Herrera Beutler, and Dan Newhouse. Tell them to OPPOSE the Graham-Cassidy “health care” bill.

Here’s the latest on this…

► From Politico — Senate GOP tries one last time to repeal Obamacare — Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and his leadership team are seriously considering voting on a bill that would scale back the federal government’s role in the health care system and instead provide block grants to states, congressional and Trump administration sources said. It would be a last-ditch attempt to repeal Obamacare before the GOP’s power to pass health care legislation through a party-line vote in the Senate expires on Sept. 30.

► In today’s NY Times — Complacency could kill heath care (by Paul Krugman) — The sponsors of the Graham-Cassidy bill now working its way toward a Senate vote claim to be offering a moderate approach that preserves the good things about Obamacare. In other words, they are maintaining the G.O.P. norm of lying both about the content of Obamacare and about what would replace it. In reality, Graham-Cassidy is the opposite of moderate. It contains, in exaggerated and almost caricature form, all the elements that made previous Republican proposals so cruel and destructive. It would eliminate the individual mandate, undermine if not effectively eliminate protection for people with pre-existing conditions, and slash funding for subsidies and Medicaid.

► In today’s Washington Post — Before tackling single-payer, save Obamacare (by Robert Samuelson) — All who care about the expansion of health-care coverage need to focus their energies on defeating this latest attack on Obamacare. However we eventually arrive at universal coverage, which we must, it will be far easier to get there by building on the ACA.