The Republican Party, in trying to replace the Affordable Care Act, have run into a buzzsaw of opposition, including voices within the industry. The American Hospital Association’s president, Richard Pollack, wrote a letter to House Republicans telling them,
“We look forward to continuing to work with the Congress and the Administration on [Affordable Care Act] reform, but we cannot support The American Health Care Act in its current form.”
As Vox’s Ezra Klein says,
This is very bad for GOP. Every member of congress has hospitals in their district. https://t.co/RdocyjXQec
— Ezra Klein (@ezraklein) March 7, 2017
In their desire to sneak all this past the American people, Republicans did not get the American Health Care Act scored by the Congressional Budget Office. They are now getting nailed for their lack of transparency. Remember when they regularly accused President Obama of a lack of transparency?
Pollack wrote,
“Any ability to evaluate The American Health Care Act, however, is severely hampered by the lack of coverage estimates by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). Lacking that level of analysis and needed transparency, we urge that Congress should. wait until an estimate is available before proceeding with formal consideration.”
That is precisely what Republicans don’t want to do. They know what shining a light on their monstrosity of a plan will reveal. They wanted to hustle their plan into effect without waiting.
As Politico’s Adam Cancryn reveals, the American Federation of Hospitals is also opposed to the Republican plan, if it can be called that:
Second major hospital group weighs in: "We have significant issues with this legislation," Federation of American Hospitals writes pic.twitter.com/J48jHrvs6p
— Adam Cancryn (@adamcancryn) March 8, 2017
As has the American College of Physicians, who in their own letter to Congress said the “AHCA will have a tremendously negative impact on access, quality, and cost of care.”
Turns out the Republican plan to enrich insurance company execs and the wealthy isn’t so popular with those whose life is dedicated to actually helping people – the very same people Republicans are supposed to be dedicated to helping.
As political missteps go, this is a big one. Ezra Klein no doubt correctly points out that “The GOP health bill doesn’t know what problem it’s trying to solve.”
Probably because the GOP’s general rule of thumb is to fix non-existent problems while ignoring real ones. In truth, they just can’t see past Obama’s name.
The GOP health bill does, however, know who it wants to benefit, and that fact is not lost on hospitals or physicians, who fully realize the people to benefit are not their patients.
Now they have spoken out in what amounts to a barrage of rotten eggs thrown at the cast of the worst political theater production in town: GOP health care reform.
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