[L]eaders in Vermont are warning that a secret health care bill moving through Congress could throw tens of thousands of people off their health insurance in this state alone.
The latest version of the bill, called the American Health Care Act, passed the U.S. House in May. Insiders gave that bill a slim chance in the U.S. Senate, but now the bill is moving through without any public process.
The bill is the Republicans’ latest attempt to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. However, the process has been so secretive that a prominent health care journalist wrote Thursday, “Republicans do not want the country to know what is in their health care bill.”
Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., called the process “nothing short of shameful.” He said Democrats in the Senate held more than 100 hearings before passing the Affordable Care Act in 2010.
“For the last seven years, we have heard Republicans in Congress campaign on the pledge to repeal the Affordable Care Act,” Leahy said. “You would think after seven years of campaigning on that promise, they would have a plan in place to do just that.”
“But instead, a dozen or so Republican lawmakers are meeting behind closed doors, shielded from public view, negotiating a grand plan to repeal the Affordable Care Act and make devastating cuts to the Medicaid program,” Leahy said.
“No hearings. No debate. No process. No score. No bill,” he said. “In keeping a tight lid on the decisions they are making for the rest of America, what are they so afraid of? We are about to find out. We hear they still intend to bring this yet-to-be-finalized bill to the Senate floor as early as next week.”
The version of the American Health Care Act that passed the House in May would have made nearly $1 trillion in cuts to the federal Medicaid program, which serves people with low incomes and those with disabilities. In Vermont, leaders have estimated that such drastic cuts could cost the state in the ballpark of $200 million in federal funding used to provide direct benefits and run state programs.
Low-income Vermonters also stood to lose the money that the federal government gives them to help pay for their health insurance. That’s because the bill proposed to give people help based on their age instead of their incomes. In total, economists estimated that the bill would mean 23 million more people would be uninsured after 10 years.
Sanders said the earlier version of the bill would “jeopardize the medical care of 49 percent of children and the 26 percent of Vermont seniors and people with disabilities who rely on Medicaid.” He said Vermont would lose 3,700 jobs by 2026.
A bipartisan group of governors signed a letter to leaders in the U.S. Senate urging them to make the bill’s process both transparent and bipartisan. Republican Gov. Phil Scott, who opposed the original version of the American Health Care Act, did not sign the letter.
Rights and Democracy, a liberal group based in Vermont, has publicly asked Scott to speak out against the bill. The group says Vermonters oppose the bill “by a 3-to-1 margin and (it) is the single least popular piece of federal legislation in decades.”
“I think we can safely assume that (the latest version) will not be drastically different than what we’ve already seen, if for no other reason than it still needs” to go back through the House, Tieman said.
“It’s difficult to oppose a bill we haven’t seen, but given that we understand it to largely reflect the bill already passed in the House, we would definitely continue to oppose this assault on health care coverage,” Tieman said.
“Whatever party you’re in, not having the opportunity to review and debate and consider what this legislation would do and what it would mean for millions of people is wildly irresponsible and unfair,” he said.
Tom Huebner, the CEO of Rutland Regional Medical Center, said up to 60,000 Vermonters would lose coverage under that plan. He said his hospital would lose up to $10 million per year in reimbursement out of an annual budget around $250 million.
Huebner is also the New England representative for the American Hospital Association, a powerful lobbying group in Washington, D.C., that backed the Affordable Care Act and has opposed all versions of the American Health Care Act.
“No one has seen it,” Huebner said. “The Senate leadership hasn’t shared it with most of the Republican members, let alone the Democrats, let alone the hospital association.”
Huebner said that, based on his sources, the Republicans may have kept roughly 80 percent of what the House passed in May.
“We’re absolutely opposed to it,” Huebner said.
