June 22 (UPI) — Senate Republicans on Thursday unveiled a new healthcare bill that would kill much of former President Barack Obama‘s Affordable Care Act — including the mandate that all Americans buy coverage and many government subsidies to help them pay for it.
The Senate bill revealed Thursday also sharply cuts Medicaid subsidies to states — one of the main ways the ACA grew coverage by 20 million people since it was first enacted in 2010.
Unlike the House version of the healthcare bill, the Senate’s preserves a system of tax breaks for low-income Americans to help them purchase insurance, though the amount of those subsidies and the number of people eligible is less than the ACA provides.
The House version of the bill scrapped income-based tax incentives in favor of a blanket tax credit for individuals that’s based on their age.
Democrats attacked the Republican proposal and all 48 senators in the caucus have pledged to vote against it.
“Simply put, this bill will result in higher costs, less care and millions of Americans will lose their health insurance, particularly through Medicaid,” Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said in a reaction speech Thursday. “It’s every bit as bad as the House bill. In some ways it’s even worse.
“The way this bill cuts health care is heartless. The president said the House bill was mean. The Senate bill may be meaner.”
“We should take this pathetic health care bill, throw it in the garbage can and do something that will work for ordinary Americans instead,” Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., said on his Twitter page Thursday.
