Statement on Reported Senate Health Care Plans, by Joe Baker, President of the Medicare Rights Center  

New York, NY—According to repeated reports, the Senate expects to vote in a mere few weeks on a plan that could fundamentally upend access to affordable health coverage for millions of Americans and especially for low-income older adults and people with disabilities who need Medicaid and Medicare.

While there’s talk of a vote, there’s no bill. Senate leaders are rushing to draft legislation under a shroud of secrecy. This is the very same playbook that resulted in the House-passed American Health Care Act, a bill overwhelmingly opposed by the American people.

Process and pace aside, there are more pressing reasons to be alarmed by the Senate’s intentions, which begin with the very same American Health Care Act—a bill to strip coverage from 23 million people, end Medicaid as we know it, and undermine the Medicare guarantee.

Senate leadership owes the American people an open, deliberative, and bipartisan dialogue on solutions that would make health care more affordable for all. The American Health Care Act is the wrong place to start.

For more information on the Medicare program and proposals under consideration by Congress to change it, visit the Medicare Rights Center’s “Protect and Strengthen” webpage at www.medicarerights.org/protect.

Press Contact: Mitchell Clark – mclark@medicarerights.org

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