Campaign Action
The American Medical Association, the nation's leading healthcare provider organization is opposing Trumpcare writing in a letter to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell "Medicine has long operated under the precept of Primum non nocere, or ‘first, do no harm.’ The draft legislation violates that standard on many levels." They cite particularly the Medicaid cuts (the ones Republicans insist aren't really cuts) and provide a ringing endorsement to Planned Parenthood. AMA President James L. Madara, MD, writes:
The AMA is particularly concerned with proposals to convert the Medicaid program into a system that limits the federal obligation to care for needy patients to a predetermined formula based on per-capita-caps. At the recently concluded Annual Meeting of the AMA House of Delegates, representatives of more than 190 state and national specialty medical associations spoke strongly in opposition to such proposals. Per-capita-caps fail to take into account unanticipated costs of new medical innovations or the fiscal impact of public health epidemics, such as the crisis of opioid abuse currently ravaging our nation. The Senate proposal to artificially limit the growth of Medicaid expenditures below even the rate of medical inflation threatens to limit states’ ability to address the health care needs of their most vulnerable citizens. It would be a serious mistake to lock into place another arbitrary and unsustainable formula that will be extremely difficult and costly to fix.
[…] We also continue to oppose Congressionally-mandated restrictions on where lower income women (and men) may receive otherwise covered health care services—in this case the prohibition on individuals using their Medicaid coverage at clinics operated by Planned Parenthood. These provisions violate longstanding AMA policy on patients’ freedom to choose their providers and physicians' freedom to practice in the setting of their choice.
No major healthcare organization—whether hospital association, provider group, patient advocacy group—none supports this legislation. In fact, all of them are ringing alarm bells about how it's actually going to close hospitals and kill people.
What the bill does first is harm, it harms millions of people. Except, of course, for the one percent. They make out like bandits with its tax cuts.
Make your Republican senator feel the heat. Call their office EVERY DAY at (202) 224-3121 to demand that they say NO to ripping health care away from millions of Americans. No on Trumpcare. Then, tell us how it went.