Senate Obamacare repeal bill would slash federal healthcare funding for Medicaid

Senate Republicans unveiled a draft bill on Thursday to roll back the Affordable Care Act, including a drastic reduction in federal healthcare spending that threatens to leave millions more Americans uninsured, drive up costs for poor consumers and further destabilize the nation’s health insurance markets.

The legislative outline, which Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s team wrote largely behind closed doors, hews closely to the Obamacare repeal bill passed last month by House Republicans, though it includes important differences. The House version was first celebrated by President Trump in a White House Rose Garden ceremony, though he later criticized the bill as “mean.”

Like the House bill, the Senate plan would eliminate hundreds of billions of dollars in taxes over the next decade, with large benefits for the wealthiest Americans. And like the House bill, it would pay for those cuts by dramatically reducing federal money for Medicaid, likely forcing states to make deep cuts in their healthcare programs for the poor. Trump promised during his campaign not to reduce Medicaid.

Although the Senate bill preserves premium subsidies that help some low-income buyers purchase insurance, it would scale them back significantly.

The reductions in federal spending for healthcare, which would be the largest rollback of the federal health safety net in history, drew sharp criticism from patient groups, doctors and some insurers. - Read More, latimes

Senate Obamacare repeal bill would slash federal healthcare funding for Medicaid

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