The Bill that just passed the Senate -- with yes votes from all but 3 Republican senators*, every one of them a sniveling, worthless coward -- is catastrophe for the nation in every possible way. It represents the largest upward transfer of wealth -- from the poor and middle classes to the wealthy -- in our history, at the cost of blowing up the national debt. But I can't write about everything so I'll concentrate on what it's going to do to the medical institutions that have brought us historically unprecedented health and longevity.
You don't have to take it from me, you can take it from the Congressional Budget Office as reported by the Center for American Progress.
"Roughly 17 million people would lose health coverage and become uninsured by 2034 because of the Medicaid and ACA marketplace cuts in the bill, the bill’s failure to extend enhanced premium tax credits for ACA marketplace coverage, and other harmful ACA marketplace changes being made via rule changes, according to estimates from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). That’s up from the House Republican plan, which would cause about 16 million people to become uninsured."
This also means that more than 300 rural hospitals will be at risk of closure or drastic reductions in service, and that 25% of nursing homes may go out of business.
The people who will be most severely affected by this disaster are, of course, disproportionately people who voted in November to make it happen. Then their grandmother gets thrown out of the nursing home and dumped on their front lawn, and they have to travel 3 hours to find a hospital but they won't be able to pay for its services once they get there, who are they going to blame? I'm very interested to find out.
*Credit where it's due, Senators Susan Collins of Maine, Thom Tillis of North Carolina, and Rand Paul of Kentucky voted no. Lisa Murkowski voted yes. If she had not, the bill would not have passed.
