This afternoon, Chuck Schumer held a press conference with progressive senior ranking members on the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee. Among them was Bernie Sanders, who slammed the House Bill after the CBO scores were released. I got this transcription from C-SPAN3.
"We can call this legislation whatever we want, you can call it a destroy health care bill. You can call it a tax break for the rich bill, but we should not call it a health care bill because never seen a health care bill which throws 23 million Americans off of health insurance. That’s not a health care bill. It’s not a health care bill when you cut medicaid by $800 billion denying health insurance to children or some of the poorest people in this country or middle class people who need help with nursing care help for their parents.
Sanders lines out the bigger picture:
It is not a health care bill when you de-plan planned parenthood and deny two and a half million women their choice of health care providers. It is not a health care bill when you force older work to pay two, three, four times more for their health care that they currently get.
Sanders then says what the bill is really about and takes off the mask:
Call it whatever you want, but please do not call this bill a health care bill. This is legislation that provides over 200 bill dollars in tax breaks. It is legislation which provides hundreds of billions of dollars in tax breaks for the insurance companies, the drug companies and other people in the medical industry.
Sanders makes a clarion call to what the American people really want from Congress:
Our job is to come together and improve the affordable care act. Lower deductibles, lower co payments, lower prescription drug costs. Our job is to pass a health care bill, not to throw millions of people off of their health insurance they currently have."
You can also read ranking member Senator Patty Murray’s remarks here.
Bernie threw one wrench in the works that the GOP may not be aware of:
“Speaking as the ranking member of the Budget Committee—as you know on the reconciliation, the HELP committee is required to save at least $1 billion. It is very possible that the new bill does not meet that basic requirement because of the high-risk pool and stabilization amendments that were added to the bill. It is possible that, that, in fact, that bill may cost the HELP committee some $28 billion rather than save a billion. And if that’s the case, reconciliation is not a process they can use.”
According to PoliticusUSA, it sounds “like legislative jargon, but this is a big problem for Republicans. The health care bill has to save $1 billion. If it adds to the deficit, as Sen. Sanders suggested that it might, the bill will be effectively dead in the Senate.”
www.politicususa.com/…
The House cannot re-vote this particular bill. Let’s get to work and call our senators.