The Congressional Budget Office says the Republican bill repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act will leave 23 million more Americans uninsured. U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown previously predicted it would raise costs and cut benefits. M.L. Schultze of member station WKSU in Kent reports.
Brown, a Democrat, mounted an attack on two fronts he said would hurt veterans and millions of others: The House Republican healthcare plan and President Trump’s budget.
He said the Republican reductions in Medicaid would cut off 71,000 Ohio veterans, including 25,000 who got coverage through the Medicaid expansion that came with Obamacare. And he accused Republicans of rushing through their plan, contrasting it with the slower pace of the Affordable Care Act.
“The Democrats took months and months to do this. We had literally dozens of hearings, and the committee I was on in the Senate – the Health Committee – we accepted over 150 Republican amendments to the bill. They did none of those things that traditionally legislators do and should do.”
Brown says he’s uncertain what will happen to the bill in the Senate, but believes polls and protests against the Republican plan have already had an impact.
Meanwhile, a new report by the progressive-leaning think tank Policy Matters Ohio, citing recent projections by the Economic Policy Institute, shows more than 80 thousand Ohio jobs could be lost by the year 2022 under the GOP bill. Mike Uhl of Premier Atrium Medical Center in Middletown says his organization stands to lose over 861 million dollars in Medicaid funding under the GOP plan, reducing jobs and services.
Andy Albrect is CEO of a Scioto County facility called The Counseling Center, which treats drug addicts. Like Republican Ohio Governor John Kasich, Albrect says the value of Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act cannot be underestimated.
The report shows one in seven Ohioans work in the private health-care sector.
