After staying mostly silent in the months since Donald Trump took office, former President Barack Obama stepped off the sidelines Thursday, slamming the Senate Republican bill to repeal and replace Obamacare, denouncing the legislation as “a massive transfer of wealth from middle-class and poor families to the richest people in America,” and making an emotional appeal for Capitol Hill to protect health-care coverage for millions of vulnerable families.
In a blistering takedown, Obama lambasted G.O.P. senators for not opposing Mitch McConnell’s bill, suggesting that they are more focused on political wins than health-care policy. “I recognize that repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act has become a core tenet of the Republican Party,” the former president wrote in a lengthy Facebook post. “Still, I hope that our Senators, many of whom I know well, step back and measure what’s really at stake, and consider that the rationale for action, on health care or any other issue, must be something more than simply undoing something that Democrats did.”
The Senate bill, unveiled today, is not a health care bill. It’s a massive transfer of wealth from middle-class and poor families to the richest people in America. It hands enormous tax cuts to the rich and to the drug and insurance industries, paid for by cutting health care for everybody else. Those with private insurance will experience higher premiums and higher deductibles, with lower tax credits to help working families cover the costs, even as their plans might no longer cover pregnancy, mental health care, or expensive prescriptions. Discrimination based on pre-existing conditions could become the norm again. Millions of families will lose coverage entirely.
Simply put, if there’s a chance you might get sick, get old, or start a family – this bill will do you harm. And small tweaks over the course of the next couple weeks, under the guise of making these bills easier to stomach, cannot change the fundamental meanness at the core of this legislation.
I hope our Senators ask themselves – what will happen to the Americans grappling with opioid addiction who suddenly lose their coverage? What will happen to pregnant mothers, children with disabilities, poor adults and seniors who need long-term care once they can no longer count on Medicaid? What will happen if you have a medical emergency when insurance companies are once again allowed to exclude the benefits you need, send you unlimited bills, or set unaffordable deductibles? What impossible choices will working parents be forced to make if their child’s cancer treatment costs them more than their life savings?
To put the American people through that pain – while giving billionaires and corporations a massive tax cut in return – that’s tough to fathom. But it’s what’s at stake right now. So it remains my fervent hope that we step back and try to deliver on what the American people need.
He concluded with a push for lawmakers to consider a bipartisan agreement on health care and urged American voters to call their senators. “After all, this debate has always been about something bigger than politics,” Obama wrote. “It’s about the character of our country—who we are, and who we aspire to be. And that’s always worth fighting for.”
