Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.) in 2020 (USDA photo by Tom Witham / Public Domain)
Republicans are obsessed with taking your health care away. This spring, they cut $1 trillion from Medicaid, all to give massive tax handouts to billionaires. For the last month and a half they shut down the government rather than prevent premiums from doubling on average for 24 million people in the Affordable Care Act marketplace. And they “won.”
The number of uninsured Americans is about to skyrocket, which is exactly what Republicans want. It is what they fight for every day: to steal your health care.
These cuts are devastating for seniors, who rely on Medicaid to pay for nursing homes and other long-term care (which typically isn’t covered by Medicare). They are also disastrous for Americans aged 50 to 64, many of whom are in the ACA marketplaces and will have the largest premium increases. Many will have no choice but to drop their health insurance and pray they don’t get too sick before they turn 65 and become eligible for Medicare — literally gambling with their lives.
Even if you’re not on Medicaid or the ACA, the Republican cuts will make your health care worse. Without the Medicaid dollars they need to survive, hospitals and nursing homes across the country are already closing their doors. Far more will close in the next few years, with rural areas and inner cities hit hardest.
The hospitals that remain open will have to cut staff due to lower revenue — even as their ERs are flooded with newly uninsured patients who have nowhere else to go. That means if you get hit by a car, you’ll likely have to go to a hospital further away and wait longer to see a doctor. All thanks to Republicans.
The only people in America whose health care isn’t about to get much worse are billionaires, who can hop into their private helicopters to see their private doctors.
Democrats are demanding that Republicans back off their draconian health care cuts. That’s what the just-concluded government shutdown was all about — Democrats refusing to vote for a budget that doesn’t fix the coming health care apocalypse.
Some Democrats thought that Republicans would come to the negotiating table and figure out a health care fix, if only out of political self-interest. But Republicans are ideologically committed to destroying health care at the behest of their billionaire donors.
House Republican Leader Mike Johnson is refusing to bring an extension of the ACA subsidies, which would prevent premiums from skyrocketing, up for a vote.
This refusal is why House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries has put forward a discharge petition to obtain a three-year extension of the ACA subsidies. If the petition gets 218 signers, it forces a floor vote which also needs 218 to pass. There are 214 Democrats in the House.
That means we need only FOUR Republicans to cross the aisle and we can get the subsidies to pass the House, putting pressure on the Senate.
It comes down to these 25 Republicans, who are in extremely tight races and whose constituents are getting hammered by spiking premiums and disastrous Medicaid cuts:
- Juan Ciscomani (AZ-06)
- Kevin Kiley (CA-03)
- David Valadao (CA-22)
- Darrell Issa (CA-48)
- Gabe Evans (CO-08)
- Cory Mills (FL-07)
- María Elvira Salazar (FL-27)
- Mariannette Miller-Meeks (IA-01)
- Zach Nunn (IA-03)
- Bill Huizenga (MI-04)
- Tom Barrett (MI-07)
- Nicole Malliotakis (NY-11)
- Tom Kean Jr. (NJ-07)
- Mike Lawler (NY-17)
- Mike Turner (OH-10)
- Brian Fitzpatrick (PA-01)
- Ryan Mackenzie (PA-07)
- Rob Bresnahan (PA-08)
- Scott Perry (PA-10)
- Andy Ogles (TN-05)
- Monica De La Cruz (TX-15)
- Rob Wittman (VA-01)
- Jen Kiggans (VA-02)
- Bryan Steil (WI-01)
- Derrick Van Orden (WI-03)
Republicans are betting that by dividing Americans against each other, they can duck the blame for the health care apocalypse they created. Let’s prove them wrong. That starts with flooding the phone lines of these Republicans and protesting outside their offices, to demand they save our health care.
Alex Lawson is the Executive Director of Social Security Works, the convening organization of the Strengthen Social Security Coalition -- a coalition made up of over 340 national and state organizations representing over 50 million Americans.