| A former Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Administrator is out with a blistering new op-ed in the Philadelphia Inquirer slamming D.C. Republicans for sticking Pennsylvanians with a massive health care bill.
Republican Congressmen Scott Perry, Ryan Mackenzie, Rob Bresnahan, and Brian Fitzpatrick all voted for a Republican funding plan that fails to extend ACA tax credits, leaving Pennsylvanians who rely on Pennie to face skyrocketing health care bills.
Read more from the former CMS Administrator below:
- This October, if Republicans in Congress don’t act — and very few of them have signaled that they want to — 20 million people in the U.S. and nearly 400,000 Pennsylvanians who get their healthcare coverage through the ACA marketplace will see their costs increase, placing even more of a strain on their budgets.
- These people are often small-business owners, or a family that is playing by the rules and moving up the economic ladder and off Medicaid, who the Republican budget penalizes. A family of four, for example, earning $64,000 a year in Pennsylvania, could see their annual premiums through Pennie increase by $2,571.
- This can be the difference between affording childcare and covering rent.
- This comes on top of the assault the GOP has already mounted against Medicaid — which insures nearly three million Pennsylvanians. For reference, if you took the Eagles’ Super Bowl parade crowd in February and tripled it, that’s how many people we’re talking about. These are low-income families, children, and the neediest people in our communities whose only access to healthcare is through Medicaid.
- The GOP budget passed in July would slash up to $57 billion from Pennsylvania’s healthcare budget over the next 10 years, leaving the state scrambling to clean up the mess Donald Trump and his allies created at the expense of poor and working-class Pennsylvanians.
- And even through all these numbers and the partisan rhetoric, it’s important to remember that behind all of them are real people with lives and families, hopes and fears. We all benefit from taking care of our neighbors and those who need it most, and beyond that, it’s just the right thing to do.
- We need leaders to step up and protect our healthcare coverage, lower our costs, and actually solve the problems that matter to us. Whether/if Republicans who represent the commonwealth in Congress can’t do that, Pennsylvanians should find people who will.
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