PD Editorial: Another dreadful health care bill

Once again, Republicans in Washington have unified hospitals, physicians, insurers and consumer groups.

They are, yet again, vigorously opposing GOP-sponsored legislation that would strip millions of Americans of their health insurance.

Eleven governors, including five Republicans and an independent, joined the fight in a letter calling on Congress to abandon its latest effort to kill the Affordable Care Act and focus instead on a bipartisan effort to stabilize the Obamacare health insurance exchanges.

The president of Blue Cross says the bill would drive up health insurance premiums, the American Medical Association says it violates the precept of do no harm, and the governors counseled that “only open, bipartisan approaches can achieve true, lasting reforms.”

Republicans in Congress should listen.

But too many of them are so fixated on repealing the Affordable Care Act that they are prepared to ignore the many flaws of the latest proposal, which was put forth by Sens. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Lindsay Graham of South Carolina, Dean Heller of Nevada and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin.

Consider this comment from Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa: “You know, I could maybe give you 10 reasons why this bill shouldn’t be considered. But Republicans campaigned on this so often that you have a responsibility to carry out what you said in the campaign. That’s pretty much as much a reason as the substance of the bill.”

Rep. Tom McClintock, R-Elk Grove, said much the same thing at a town hall meeting in Angels Camp this week. “Congress needs to step up and fulfill the promise that we made,” he said, according to an account in the Sacramento Bee.

They may not be concerned about the substance of the repeal bill, but people in the business of delivering health care are, and the rest of us should be too.

The bill, known as Graham-Cassidy, would eliminate the requirement that people purchase health insurance - leaving the rest of us to pick up the cost of care for free-loaders. The bill also would do away with safeguards for people with pre-existing medical conditions, erase requirements that insurance policies cover maternal care and mental health and allows insurers to reinstate lifetime caps on coverage. The net effect would be to price millions of people out of the market.

There’s more. The Affordable Care Act expanded eligibility for Medicare and provided funding for states that opted in as well as subsidies for many people in the individual insurance market. Under Graham-Cassidy, that money would be replaced with state-by-state block grants. But the grants would expire after 10 years, and the states that didn’t expand Medicaid would receive funding at the expense of those that did.

No state would be hit harder than California, which would lose $28 billion a year, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

This would be a fundamental transformation of the health care system, and congressional Republicans are prepared to push it to a vote with only a single hearing. Moreover, the legislation has yet to be reviewed by the Congressional Budget Office. So we don’t know how many of the 20.5 million Americans who have gained coverage under the Affordable Care Act stand to lose it. But it won’t be a small number.

What’s the rush? For parliamentary reasons, it will take 60 votes in the Senate, instead of 51, if Graham-Cassidy isn’t passed by Friday. But this dreadful bill shouldn’t be passed at all.