Perspectives On Who Might Feel Pain From The House-Passed Health Bill

Cleveland Plain Dealer: Rural Republicans At Center Of Opioid Tsunami Among Ohioans Likely To Suffer Most From GOP's Medicaid Cuts
Thursday's vote by most U.S. House Republicans to rewrite the Affordable Care Act demonstrated two things. One is that, on health care, Gov. John Kasich is among the few Republican adults in the room. The bill, he said in a Tweet posted after the congressional vote, "remains woefully short on the necessary resources to maintain health care for our nation's most vulnerable citizens." (Thomas Suddes, 5/6)

The Washington Post: Keeping My Kids With Diabetes Alive Costs Thousands A Year. Trumpcare Terrifies Me.
Last week, the House of Representatives passed the American Health Care Act, which would cut Medicaid considerably and allow insurance companies to charge people with preexisting conditions significantly more for coverage. As a mom of four kids — two with Type 1 diabetes, an unpreventable, incurable and expensive disease — I am terrified that this bill will put my children’s lives at risk if it becomes law. (Jennifer Reilly, 5/8)

Bloomberg: Death Spirals And Other Problems The Republican Health Plan Doesn't Solve 
No per-capita grant is going to cover fantastically expensive nursing home care. And nursing home care is not some rare expense that can be easily absorbed in the general pool; it accounts for about a third of annual Medicaid spending. Since I really doubt that states are going to kick seniors out of nursing homes, they will probably end up having to top up the federal grants with their own money, and/or shift more and more resources away from younger patients. (Megan McArdle, 5/5)

St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Gutting Health Care For 24 Million Americans Is No Cause For Celebration
President Donald Trump and House Republican leaders gathered in the White House Rose Garden at mid-afternoon Thursday to celebrate House passage of the American Health Care Act a couple of hours earlier. The scene was bewildering. Here were people who had just voted to destroy health care coverage for up to 14 million Americans next year — and as many as 24 million in 10 years. It would do so by generating a $600 billion tax cut for wealthy Americans. (5/6)

WBUR: Under The Republican Health Bill, We All Have Pre-Existing Conditions 
But there’s no component of the American Health Care Act more detrimental to public health and the soul of this nation than an amendment which will allow health insurance companies to discriminate against individuals with “pre-existing conditions.” Why? Because nearly all of us have pre-existing health conditions — and there’s no telling which ones might price us out of the health insurance marketplace tomorrow, a year from now, or farther down the road. (Miles Howard, 5/5)

Cincinnati Enquirer: American Health Care Act Will Kill People
On Thursday, Republicans in the House of Representatives, including Steve Chabot and Brad Wenstrup, succeeded. They succeeded on their pledge to once again devastate the lives of their constituents in the name of the almighty political win. As they glad-handed in the Rose Garden and celebrated their callous act of craven political expediency with one another, constituents of all political persuasions across the nation with pre-existing conditions likely felt sick to their stomach. (Neil Kelly, 5/5)

Des Moines Register: Health Care Is Turning Future Doctors Into Politicians, Whether They Like It Or Not
We live in a society that treats health care as a commodity — like gasoline — rather than a human right. The problem with that model is that no matter how much money you have or what kind of job you have, gas costs basically the same at Casey's General Stores as it does at Kum & Go. Health care costs, however, vary greatly based on socioeconomic status. Poor people tend to pay more and, because they often cannot afford insurance, they seek the most expensive kind of care: emergency room service. (Daniel P. Finney, 5/5)

Richmond Times-Dispatch: If The GOP Health Care Bill Is So Evil, Then What About Those Awful Doctors?
Foes of the Republican bill say relaxing current rules regarding pre-existing conditions, as the GOP bill would do, is tantamount to killing people. Interestingly, they never explain exactly why that might be so. If people with pre-existing conditions are denied insurance coverage, or are charged so much for coverage that they can’t afford it, then they might end up with medical bills they cannot pay, leading to bankruptcy — and perhaps even have to go without life-saving treatment. (5/6)

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: American Health Care Act Is Monstrous
Instead, they shoved through a downright diabolical bill to quite literally eliminate insurance coverage for some 20 million Americans in order to cut taxes for the most obscenely wealthy among us. If passed by the Senate, the bill would also re-create the pre-ACA death trap of allowing insurers to deny coverage to people with pre-existing conditions. If you’re wondering what all would qualify as such, it’s a long list, but suffice to say you’re out just for being a woman, for getting pregnant, for being sexually assaulted, for getting sick, or even just for being born. Lifetime limits would come back, meaning that an infant in need of NICU care might hit their cap within weeks of being alive and never be able to get coverage again. All of this coming from legislators among whom many claim to be “pro-life. (Emily Mills, 5/5)