Merced advocates blast Senate health bill, citing increased costs for sick, seniors

The Senate health care bill to replace the Affordable Care Act could make coverage more expensive for many sicker, older and low-income individuals, Merced County health care advocates said.

The Senate health care bill would defund Planned Parenthood for one year, despite concerns that the provision might violate Senate budget rules.

Out of state’s 58 counties, Merced County ranked second-to-last for the percentage of pregnant women who receive adequate prenatal care, according to a report compiled by the California Budget and Policy Center, the Women’s Well-Being Index.

The closely guarded draft of the Senate legislation was released Thursday morning, revealing some significant revisions to the widely panned American Health Care Act that narrowly passed the House of Representatives in May – but staying in line with the Republican push to cut taxes and phase out Medicaid expansion.

The bill would make it make it harder to prevent unwanted pregnancy and more difficult to have a healthy pregnancy, according to Patsy Montgomery, director of public affairs for Planned Parenthood Mar Monte, which oversees Merced’s office.

“If Planned Parenthood were to close it would be hard for other providers to absorb that, especially with the specialty care they provide,” she said of the 5,500 patients seen annually. “It would impact all individuals in Merced.”

“It would strip millions of people from health insurance all over country,” she added.

A 2016 Community Health Assessment by the Merced County Department of Public Health found Merced County doesn’t have a sufficient number of doctors to meet local health care needs.

Health officials in Merced County have said part of the problem is the county’s high rate of Medi-Cal patients, about 51 percent of all residents. Medi-Cal doesn’t reimburse physicians as much as other insurance providers. The report also said many health care professionals simply don’t want to live in Merced County, saying there are more attractive communities nearby.

Negotiated in secret by a hand-picked group of 13 male senators with little input from patient advocacy groups, hospitals and care providers, the legislation hews closely to the AHCA by cutting subsidies that help purchase marketplace insurance, phasing out the Medicaid expansion and proposing even deeper cuts to Medicaid than the ten-year, $834 billion reduction sought in the House legislation.

The legislation, named the Better Care Reconciliation Act, also would abolish most of the taxes that funded the Affordable Care Act’s coverage expansion.

The hits to lower-income, sick and older Americans, coupled with the secrecy, haste and lack of debate that surrounded the Senate bill’s creation, will make it hard for moderate Republicans to vote for the measure in a possible floor vote next Thursday. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell can afford to lose just two Republican votes, and quite a few already are skeptics.

Four GOP conservatives, Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky, Ted Cruz of Texas, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Mike Lee of Utah, issued a joint statement saying the legislation doesn’t go far enough and that they wouldn’t vote for the bill now – but that they are open to negotiation.

Even if the legislation does eventually pass the Senate, it will face tough sledding in the House, where a more conservative version barely passed in May.

A Congressional Budget Office analysis of the Senate bill’s cost and impact is expected this week. The repeal legislation that passed the House of Representatives, the American Health Care Act, would leave 23 million people without health coverage and slash Medicaid’s budget by $834 billion over ten years, the CBO found.

Working with researchers from Harvard University, the liberal Center for American Progress estimates that 18,000 to 27,700 more people will die by 2026 because of coverage reductions under the Senate bill.

UltraViolet, a national women’s advocacy group, will hold protests on Friday at the state offices of six Republican senators to express their concerns about the legislation. The group will target the district offices of Susan Collins of Maine, Johnny Isakson of Georgia, Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, Tom Cotton of Arkansas, Jeff Flake of Arizona and Cory Gardner of Colorado.

“Repealing the Affordable care Act and replacing it with a secretive Republican plan - one devised behind closed doors and without the input of a single woman at the table - isn’t a solution, it’s an assault on our very lives and the makings of a severe national health care crisis,” said a statement from Nita Chaudhary, a co-founder of UltraViolet.

A disappointing CBO score for the Senate bill would only compound the pressure facing Collins and other wary Republicans like Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, Rob Portman of Ohio and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska.

This story was originally published June 26, 2017 at 8:58 AM with the headline "Merced advocates blast Senate health bill, citing increased costs for sick, seniors."