911! Fight Against the Cassidy-Graham Plan

white background with red vertical lines on either side; black text "911!" and red text "Fight Against the Cassidy-Graham Plan" and black text "#savetheACA #ACAsavedmylife Not Standing Still's Disease"

Update: public comments are due by 9 AM Eastern Time Monday morning (25th). You can email your comments to GCHcomments@finance.senate.gov or visit willtrumpcarehurtme.com‘s email assist.

Not only do we have to fight to protect the ADA, we still have to fight for healthcare.

I’m starting to worry that this is going to be every fucking quarter, but I digress.

You can read the 141-paged plan (referred to as Cassidy-Graham, Graham-Cassidy, Graham-Cassidy-Heller, and Graham-Cassidy-Heller-Johnson) but here’s the scoop on what this bill would do:

Eliminates subsidies for private insurance
Ends Medicaid expansion
Caps Medicaid money, leaving millions of people uninsured
Allows waivers to charge sick/ill/disabled patients more (fucking high-risk pools)
Stops requirements on ACA-required benefits
Repeals tax credits for middle class
Puts up barriers to health insurance for low income people (and removes subsidies)

Cassidy and others have said this block grant program would simply give money to the states for them to decide. It’s essentially shifting ACA-type stuff to states rights type stuff, acting as though states could then keep ACA programs in place. Without the support at the federal level – and with a large number of anti-ACA governors – this won’t be the case.

One scary thing to note is that the Congressional Budget Office won’t have enough time to evaluate the bill before September 30th. This is the last day this bill could be passed with 50 votes (or 51 with VPence). Otherwise, filibuster could prevent the bill from being passed.

Graham-Cassidy-Heller (ACA Repeal) Simple Summary - Repeal and Replace is back. Take it seriously. Here's what it does: *Estimated 32 million will lose coverage within 10 years (not yet scored) *Ends Medicaid expansion. Health care for 11 million low-income adults. *Ends all subsidies for the exchange, replaced by a smaller and declining "block grant" *Block grant doesn't have to be spent on same population *Cuts coverage for low income seniors, children and people w disabilities by 7% by 2026 with a "per capita cap" (Yes, that's right -- a block grant AND a Lee capita cap) *Ends Federal protections on pre-existing conditions, life time caps and essential benefits. 50% of states expected to do so. *Ends all cost sharing payments to low income Americans *Ends all funding for coverage by 2026; 100% afterwards *Averages would be dramatically different: 20 states estimated to lose 35-60% of funding to move money to rural, red states *CBO has not estimated impact on premiums, but likely 20% spike next year *Would likely be presented to the House as "take it or leave it" if passes Senate *Provide no funding for recessions, natural disasters, public health emergencies, or price spikes *Targets women's health/family planning *Uses the same "50 votes" only partisan technique to pass; upends all bipartisan progress of the last two weeks - Source: Centers for Budget and Policy, prior estimates

Source: Andy Slavitt’s Twitter; see alt-text for description

This is a more radical version of repeal and replace efforts so far.

I’m tired of fighting, so I’m sure you are, too. If we don’t fight this one, though, we lose any progress we’ve made up to now.

What to do now:

Contact your Senators (especially if you live in South Carolina, Louisiana, Nevada, or Wisconsin)
- Call them at 844-859-3118
  - Use Indivisible’s call script if you like
- Use ResistBot
- Talk to them on social media
- Email
- Fax
- While you’re at it, tell them it’s unfair and illegal to strip the ACA’s funding
Protest and picket (if able)
Get loud on social media
- Follow Andy Slavitt on Twitter for updates
- Use tags like #savetheACA
Send letters to the editors or reach out to your local news to explain your concerns