Pure awesome:
Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) personally delivered free pizza to protesters against the Republicans’ efforts to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act.
The demonstrators have been protesting and camping out in the nation's capital since Sunday night outside of the Russell Senate Office Building and plan to stay there until the Senate votes on the proposed health care bill.
On Monday evening, Sen. Casey handed boxes of pizza to several people in wheelchairs to chants of “Go Bob Casey!”
“We are here because we are fighting for our lives, we are fighting for Medicaid, which funds so many of these people sitting here in front of these services, the way a lot of these people get up out of bed to go to their jobs, to do their daily lives,” one protester told FOX 5.
Casey has been tireless in his efforts to stop this disastrous Trumpcare bill from passing by reaching out to his constituents:
Few people disagreed with U.S. Sen. Bob Casey on Saturday morning.
The roughly 200 constituents who attended a town hall the Scranton Democrat held in Blasco Library’s Hirt Auditorium had been given “agree/disagree” signs to indicate where they stood on his responses to questions.
Throughout the hour-and-a-half event, it became clear that most of them supported his efforts against congressional Republicans working to repeal the Affordable Care Act, and it was clear that they wanted something to be done about Russian meddling in the 2016 election.
Casey was prepared for questions on both topics. He has been talking about them online, over the phone and in person since March, when he kicked off a series of constituent outreach events, spanning Philadelphia, Scranton, Pittsburgh, Johnstown, Altoona, Harrisburg and Lancaster.
People in attendance on Saturday — many were from the city of Erie, a Democratic stronghold — applauded the senator for his efforts, and contrasted Casey with the rest of Erie County’s delegation in Congress. None of those members, all Republicans, has held an in-person town hall in Erie this year to face opposition to their efforts to roll back former president Barack Obama’s signature health care law.
“You are very brave,” one person told Casey. “A lot of your colleagues are not doing this.”
Casey said the fight over health care is not over yet, even as support in the Senate for a Republican bill he said would “take a sledgehammer” to Medicaid has waned in recent weeks. A sense of resolution may arrive in the coming days, when the Senate is expected to vote on some form of health care legislation.
“It may all come to a conclusion this week,” Casey said.
And Casey wasn’t shy in rooting for the latest attempt at Trumpcare to fail:
Casey said he hopes the vote Tuesday fails and is the last one before what he termed "another chapter." He said the president could show leadership on some issues and Congress could tackle bipartisan fixes on things like cost-sharing reduction payments.
"If those cost-sharing reduction payments stop, we're going to have premium increases and even greater problems than some communities have now," he said.
Casey urged the president and congressional leadership to support not only consistently making cost-sharing reduction payments, but also enforcing the individual mandate. He argued that would allow insurance markets to calm.
Casey visited Fulton County Medical Center to highlight how he perceives Medicaid cuts could hurt the rural center, which has a 21-bed critical-access hospital and 67-bed skilled nursing center.
Medicaid and related funding comprise 15.9 percent of Fulton County Medical Center's net revenue, according to data from Casey's office.
About 1,150 people in Fulton County obtained health insurance from Pennsylvania's Medicaid expansion and the Affordable Care Act's exchanges.
Fulton County Medical Center President and Chief Executive Officer Jason Hawkins said the uninsured rate of people entering the emergency room dropped from 14 percent to between 4 percent and 5 percent after development of the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare.
Unfortunately, Casey’s colleague and Trumpcare architect, Tea Party U.S. Senator Pat Toomey (R. PA), keeps on spreading lies:
Pennsylvania US Senator Pat Toomey visited Republican-friendly Chester County, for a roundtable discussion with business leaders in West Chester. Much of the conversation centered on the Senate about to take another stab at a healthcare reform vote, as early as Tuesday.
One of the sticky points is Senator Toomey’s push to scale back Medicaid spending, which he says is “fiscally unsustainable.”
“It’s already growing much faster than the American economy; and everything the government does has to be supported by the economy,” he said. “So, that’s not viable.”
Senator Toomey is seeking to put a cap on the rate of growth of per-beneficiary Medicaid spending. He argues the change is needed to rein in rising Medicaid costs, and that states should pay more of the load.
“We are going to ask the states to pay their fair share,” he said.
Critics, including Governor Wolf argue the changes would result in millions of people losing their health coverage, including the poor, disabled, and children.
And Toomey, of course, doesn’t care what he’s voting for, as long as he can get rid of Obamacare:
The cloud of uncertainty hovered even as Toomey spoke to business owners and executives at a suburban office park in West Chester. And with the potential for failure looming, the senator, who helped write the Republican health plan, already had one eye on another key GOP priority, tax reform.
He told reporters at the roundtable event that he was unsure if Republicans had the votes to keep their current repeal effort alive. Still, Republican leaders vowed to push ahead with a key procedural vote, with success looking like a long shot. Should they advance the measure anyway, it’s unclear what would come next — whether they would move to repeal and replace the law known as Obamacare, to simply repeal the law and replace it later. The uncertainty has left several senators wary on a vote on which the GOP has almost no margin for error. Either way, party leaders hope to force senators to formally take a stand before summer recess.
Toomey, like other Republicans, did not know which idea would be posted for a vote.
“I expect to find that out, actually quite soon, sometime this afternoon,” he said Monday after a meeting set up by the Chester County Chamber of Business and Industry. Acknowledging the uncertainty, he later added, “It’s a big, complicated challenge.”
Adding to the challenge: Several major provisions critical for winning over conservative votes could be dropped under the complex rules that Republicans are using to try to pass the health measure with a simple majority, rather than a 60-vote threshold.
Toomey said that he would prefer to repeal and replace the legislation at the same time, but that he was open to the idea of repealing now and then trying to work with Democrats on a replacement. The GOP would delay the repeal for two years to try to craft a new law.
Feel free to give Toomey a piece of your mind by contacting his offices and tell him to stop his assault on your health care. Click here to contact his offices.
And lets be sure to keep great public servants like Senator Casey and Governor Wolf in charge. Click below to donate and get involved with their re-election campaigns:
Bob Casey
Tom Wolf