McAuliffe on proposed Cassidy-Graham healthcare bill

Governor Terry McAuliffe comments today in response to the health care legislation introduced by Senators Cassidy and Graham.

“The Senate Republican’s latest effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act would have the exact same disastrous consequences for Virginia’s families as the previous versions that they tried to ram through earlier this year. This legislation, like the earlier iterations, was not designed to make health care better. It is nothing more than a tax cut for the rich and a poorly disguised cost shift from the federal government to the states and families.

“Once again, middle-class families, seniors, and women suffer the most as premiums will skyrocket and Medicaid will be slashed. This bill re-introduces policies that gut protections for individuals with pre-existing conditions and no longer requires insurers to provide essential service coverage. And it goes further by slashing funding to states for marketplace tax credits and cost-sharing reductions on the way to zeroing them out completely after 2026.

“This backdoor effort to force through legislation without waiting for a CBO score or even holding as much as a single hearing is totally unacceptable. Our estimates is that this will be a $1.2 Billion cut to Virginia’s Medicaid program. I urge the Senate Republicans to stop undermining our economy and health care system and instead to work together in a transparent and bipartisan manner to fix the existing issues with the ACA.”