The lack of support for the GOP health care bill has Maine consumer advocacy groups and health care providers breathing sighs of relief — for now.
Consumer and provider groups across the U.S., including many in Maine, opposed the Republican bill.
“I’m feeling relief for all of the people who would have lost their health insurance coverage if this bill had moved forward,” says Robyn Merrill, executive director of Maine Equal Justice Partners.
Maine Equal Justice Partners was particularly concerned about changes to the Medicaid program proposed under the bill. Merrill says it would have limited federal funding to states by instituting per capita caps or block grants.
“That would have taken $1 billion out of Maine over 10 years and taken health care coverage away from tens of thousands of Mainers. I mean, it just would have been devastating for our state,” she says.
The Republican bill would have also eliminated the individual and employer mandate, changed premium subsidies to be calculated according to age versus income and allowed insurance companies to charge older consumers five times as much as younger consumers.
A late-stage negotiation would have also allowed states, rather than the federal government, decide which Essential Health Benefits insurers should cover.
None of those changes, says Emily Brostek of Consumers for Affordable Health Care, would have been an improvement.
“It was going to cover fewer Americans. They made changes that meant it was going to cost more. And so I’m very glad and in some ways not surprised they’re pulling this bill. No one seemed to think this was the right choice for America to move forward with,” she says.
The bill would have also eliminated federal Medicaid reimbursement for Planned Parenthood. Federal dollars cannot fund abortions except in extreme circumstances, so Planned Parenthood of Northern New England’s Nicole Clegg says the defund measure would have jeopardized patient access for services such as cancer screenings, disease testing, birth control, and maternity care.
“And resulted in people just not having access to the lifesaving care that we provide every day,” she says.
Though the Affordable Care Act is intact for the foreseeable future, there is widespread agreement that it does have problems. Brostek says as lawmakers move forward, she hopes they’ll build on the ACA.
“Find ways to better control costs, including rising pharmaceutical drug prices, which this proposed legislation did nothing to address, and make steps to make insurance more affordable for more middle-income Americans who still can’t afford it,” she says.
Given the complexity of the current law and the political divides in Congress, that will be no small challenge.
