“Representative Andy Barr owns the deeply harmful Senate healthcare repeal and ripoff bill to its core,” said Cole Leiter DCCC spokesperson. “Folks in Kentucky know how important expanded access to Medicaid has been for their community and if Andy Barr thinks they’ll forget the way he has betrayed those at risk, then he’s in for a rude awakening come next November.”
Here’s what Lexington is reading this morning:
Secret Senate Health bill revealed. Call it McConnelldoesn’tcare | Lexington Herald-Leader
By Tom Eblen
Key Points:
- McConnellcare — more accurately called McConnelldoesn’tcare — would set new limits on Medicaid spending for the poorest 20 percent of citizens and two-thirds of elderly people in nursing homes. It also would phase out the 2014 Medicaid expansion, which brought coverage to more than 400,000 uninsured Kentuckians.
- The Senate plan would give wealthy Americans a huge tax cut by repealing almost all of the taxes the Affordable Care Act, which Republicans dubbed Obamacare, levied against high-income people and medical companies to pay for itself.
- Let’s call the House bill Barrcare after Andy Barr of Lexington, a vocal supporter. That is a good name for it, because the bill would bar many low-income workers from having access to care they received under the ACA.
- The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office determined that Barrcare would take insurance away from 23 million Americans. The CBO said it “score” the Senate bill by early next week.
- Previously, many uninsured Kentuckians either went without care or sought expensive treatment at emergency rooms, forcing hospitals to eat the cost. Expect that to again be the case under the GOP plans.
- Even if this Republican debacle does not become law, we can count on Kentucky’s GOP politicians to keep sabotaging health care reform and blaming the damage they do on Democrats.
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