Surgeon On Health Care Bill: The Stakes Are 'Extremely High' For Patients

On Monday, as GOP leaders tried to rally Republican lawmakers to support their health care proposal, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office released a report showing that the plan would lead to an estimated 14 million fewer people with health insurance by next year.

The CBO also found the proposed plan would reduce the federal deficit by $337 billion.

Atul Gawande is a cancer surgeon at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, Mass., and a staff writer at The New Yorker magazine. He has spoken out against the GOP bill, expressing concern that it would cause poor and sick people to lose health coverage.

The stakes for patients, he argues, are "extremely high," and he says the bill is at the "center of the debate [about] what our responsibilities are for covering people over the course of their lives." - NPR

Surgeon On Health Care Bill: The Stakes Are 'Extremely High' For Patients