Washington, D.C. – Congressman Mark DeSaulnier (CA-11) issued the following statement after Senate Republican Leadership released their health care bill, the Better Care Reconciliation Act. The Senate is expected to vote on the bill next week.
“As one Member of Congress who would like to engage in an open, bipartisan, and constructive health care debate, the Senate bill is a disappointment and echoes the already damaging bill that passed the House of Representatives last month.
Under the Republican bill, Americans would pay more money for less coverage, and millions of people – especially among the 69 million currently covered by Medicaid – could be left without health insurance. Cutting Medicaid is an assault on 6 million seniors, will keep 33 million parents up at night worrying about how to care for their children, abandons 10 million Americans living with disabilities, and impacts 1.75 million veterans. The Republican plan also targets people 50 to 64 by forcing them to pay up to five times more than what others pay for health coverage, regardless of how healthy they are. Equally disturbing is that anyone with pre-existing conditions is no longer guaranteed coverage as states are empowered to allow insurance companies to determine which treatments will be covered.
After weeks of closed-door meetings with the pharmaceutical and health products industry, which spent $78 million in lobbying efforts during the first quarter of this year, and employs ‘1,100 lobbyists or more than two for each Member of Congress’ according to the Center for Responsible Politics, it is no surprise that the Republican health care plan is a giant tax break for the wealthiest and sacrifices the health of our country to increase corporate profits.
We should be strengthening our current health care system by working toward what every industrialized country in the world already provides its citizens – comprehensive health insurance coverage for all .”
5 comments
Congressman, can you give me a statement on what you’ve done to make things better for us? No, I didn’t think so. Also may I add, how is your health care? Why does congress have a better health care program than us? Waiting for another statement!!
Congressman, can you give me a statement on what you’ve done to make things better for us? No, I didn’t think so. Also may I add, how is your health care? Why does congress have a better health care program than us? Waiting for another statement!!
It’s sad how there’s no nurses, doctors, techs determining health care for Americans, just old career politicians. But then when Ron Paul, an obstetrician for decades who had firsthand experience in women’s and family care practice, he was scoffed at like a socialist. Scoff at this man all you want but the puppet masters deserve criticism, especially in something beyond politics like health care.
Congressman Desaulnier, you are a fake. How can you comment on what is good for us when you have special insurance for yourself ?
Congressman, you have a short memory as you’ve obviously forgotten the middle class Americans whose premiums more than doubled under Obamacare (ACA); how even the State of California, under ACA, when hiring to staff Covered California help centers, made the positions part time so they wouldn’t have to pay for health insurance; how Speaker Pelosi, during the days before the ACA was enacted, said, “We have to pass this…to see what’s in it.”; how ACA sets the dangerous precedent REQUIRING, under penalty of law, that all Americans purchase Health Coverage, the first time a law has forced people to to buy a product or service; how even elderly people’s policies had to include coverage for birth control. The list goes on. It’s typical politics for you to say the Republicans are “taking away” coverage from people who were given it under a program we couldn’t afford. You are slowly, but surely, eroding the right of Americans to chose, while giving people “rights” under guise of compassion. You may as well campaign for free food, housing, clothing, and health care as it is surely the direction in which you are taking America.
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