“We must call the Senate’s ACA repeal bill exactly what it is: a moral travesty -- a tax cut for the rich financed on the backs of the most vulnerable members of our society. This legislation will result in millions of Americans losing their health care. The bill’s massive cuts to Medicaid, a program that provides urgently needed health care to children, the disabled, low-income Americans and nursing home residents, are particularly repugnant. 

This bill solves no policy problem; in fact, it would worsen every one of our healthcare system’s important challenges. On top of that, no majority in any state supports the House’s version of this bill, which the Congressional Budget Office projects will leave 23 million more Americans without health care and destabilize insurance markets to the point where people with serious illnesses will not be able to afford care. The Senate’s legislation closely mirrors the House bill and in some ways is even more extreme. So why the urgency to pass a deeply unpopular, secretly negotiated bill without a single Congressional hearing? A credible explanation is the massive windfall in tax cuts that will go to billionaire donors like Sheldon Adelson, who will save more than $40 million on his taxes if this bill goes into effect.  The pharmaceutical industry’s $28 billion tax cut will more than offset their outsized campaign contributions directed at the senators who secretly drafted this bill. 

Simply put, people will die needlessly if this law is enacted. It is not only “mean,” but it would be utterly catastrophic for tens of millions of Americans.  We will do everything in our power to prevent this bill from passing. Any senator who votes in favor of this legislation will be turning their backs on the people they were elected to serve and abandoning our nation’s moral conscience.”

Share this story