Campaign Action
After seven years—seven years—of promising Obamacare repeal and replacement, Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell is doing precisely what House Speaker Paul Ryan did: slap together a plan in a matter of weeks and try to force it through his chamber on a party-line vote. Where the Zombie Trumpcare bill Ryan forced through was a slapdash cut and paste of Obamacare, with lots of tax cuts for the rich and decimated Medicaid, the Senate bill is likely to be a cut and paste of Zombie Trumpcare. Senate Republican leadership estimates that the Senate version will overlap the House bill by as much as 80 percent.
Which means it will still hurt the most vulnerable people the hardest. For example, children, according to a new study from Brandeis University, which estimates 4.7 million school-aged children would lose their Medicaid coverage under Trumpcare.
Black and Hispanic children would be disproportionately affected, according to the study, released last week. […]
The Brandeis study’s authors point to the GOP bill’s goal of returning the federal income eligibility limit to 100 percent of the federal poverty level (now $20,420 for a family of 3) for children ages 6 to 19, down from the current 138 percent threshold under the Affordable Care Act. […]
The decline in the number of black children eligible in Georgia would be 74,024, the second-largest decline in the country, the study says. States with the largest declines in the number of black children eligible for Medicaid under the AHCA include Florida (88,200); Georgia (74,024); Texas (66,872); North Carolina (52,628); and New York (48,449). The decline in the percentage of black children eligible in Georgia would be 12 percent.
The decline in the number of Hispanic children eligible in Georgia is estimated at 40,700. The states with the largest declines in the number of Hispanic children eligible for Medicaid under the AHCA include California (462,474); Texas (358,479); Florida (118,852); New York (90,639); and Arizona (71,580). Georgia ranks 8th. The decline in the percentage of Hispanic children eligible in Georgia would be 16.4 percent.
That's a feature, not a bug, for most Republicans. What's a few million brown or black kids' lives when they're getting their massive tax cuts?