In less than 24 hours, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will raise a procedural motion to bring health care repeal to a vote in the US Senate. It’s not yet clear what proposal will be voted on should he succeed. But one thing’s for sure—whether it’s the Senate Republicans’ Better Care Reconciliation Act, or House Republicans’ American Health Care Act, or some other measure, it will rob millions of women and working families of their health care and be particularly devastating to people of color.
People For the American Way joined the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights and more than 160 other organizations on a letter sent today urging senators to vote against the “motion to proceed.”
[W]e urge you to oppose the motion to proceed on the Better Care Reconciliation Act (BCRA), which will eliminate affordable quality health care for millions of Americans by gutting the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and slashing federal funding and transforming Medicaid into a block grant or per capita cap; and eliminating the Medicaid expansion. We urge you to support the Parliamentarian’s ruling excluding the defunding of Planned Parenthood health centers from the reconciliation bill. The latest Congressional Budget Office (CBO) review of the revised Senate bill found that at least 22 million people in the United States would be significantly worse off than under current law, resulting in the same number of uninsured as the original version of the BCRA. In addition, CBO also found that a straight repeal of the ACA would result in 32 million more people without health insurance.
PFAW and our allies are clear: when transparency is so low, senators cannot say yes to any proposal that has such high stakes consequences for the American people.
We are seriously concerned about the lack of transparency of the discussions leading to BCRA and the rush now to vote on the bill without adequate time for analysis, hearings, and discussion of a CBO score, which would provide opportunity for the public to understand the proposed legislation and participate in this discussion in which their very access to health care for themselves and their families is at stake.
We’ve gotten this far in the health care fight thanks to activists like you who’ve kept a close eye on your senators and representatives and kept the health care calls going into their offices. Please keep those calls going. You can use the call tools provided by Planned Parenthood or NARAL Pro-Choice America. Or you can call into the Senate switchboard at 202-224-3121. You can also reach your senators directly here.