A group of activists rally against a GOP health care plan outside of the Metropolitan Republican Club, July 5, 2017, in New York City. (Photo: Drew Angerer / Getty Images)
The Trumpcare zombie has risen from the grave to terrorize the American public once more.
Progressive organizations, lawmakers, hospital groups, and healthcare specialists have issued a “red alert” as reporting over the weekend indicated that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is considering a vote by the end of this month on what Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) called Sunday “yet another disastrous Republican proposal to throw millions of people off health insurance.”
In an email to supporters Sunday night, Ben Wikler, Washington director of MoveOn.org, warned that the Republican Party “is now a hair’s breadth away — closer than they’ve ever been — to passing a devastating healthcare repeal bill, shredding the Affordable Care Act (ACA), and gutting Medicaid.”
“All we need is one more [vote],” Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) concluded.
The plan under consideration was authored by Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Bill Cassidy (R-La.). Summaries of the bill indicate that, if passed, it would be every bit as harmful as the Trumpcare proposals that failed to escape the Senate in July.
The Graham-Cassidy plan — “Trumpcare by another name” — has yet to be analyzed by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), but McConnell has asked for the scoring process to be fast-tracked, the Washington Post reports.
But even without a CBO score, experts have said there is enough evidence to conclude the plan would impose devastating and deadly cuts to key safety net programs and disproportionately harm America’s most vulnerable communities.
In a recent analysis, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) found that the Graham-Cassidy plan would “gut protections for people with pre-existing conditions,” impose “damaging cuts” to Medicaid, and “cause many millions of people to lose coverage.”
By 2027, the…