FROM THE OBAMA ALUMNI ASSOCIATION:
Today is the most important day yet to make our voices heard and protect ACA. Here are three simple actions that anyone can do today to help prevent 24 million Americans from losing coverage and many more from losing critical benefits. You can also see some talking points further below.
Please take a moment to help protect this important legacy and critical safety net for millions of Americans:
1. Calls, calls, calls: Here's a tool that you can share with your members or share SEIU's numbers. Starting calls as soon as possible is important and helpful and there are many votes that we can flip. 2. Turn out and amplify: There are events happening around the country TODAY - ResistanceNearMe.org for events. You can help make these events seen in real time by encouraging attendees and your affiliates to tag the targeted member in social media! 3. Get out the facts: Help explain how this bill will hurt millions of Americans. Many moderates may not know is just how bad eliminating essential health benefits are.
- Covering pre-existing conditions would only be on paper. Plans will not cover basic services, even prescription drugs, that people need to treat their conditions to stay healthy.
- Charging women more than men. No longer requiring plans to cover maternity care would mean that insurance companies would once again be able to penalize women and charge them more.
- Removing Essential Health Benefits effectively obliterates out-of-pocket caps and reinstates annual and lifetime limits. Because annual and lifetime limits apply only to essential health benefits, insurers could once again put a cap on how much care one receives but not on how much people owe. Those with employer-sponsored coverage will be at risk too.
- ASK: Vote no. We need every member to PUBLICLY oppose the health care repeal bill as soon as possible. We need people to publicly say they are going to vote no so when the time comes for them to vote we already have them on record so they will be less likely to flip.
Some Suggested Key Talking Points: Day of Health Care Repeal Vote
Last night, GOP leaders caved to the most radical parts of their caucus and made a bad bill even worse - not only does it raise premiums and deductibles and cut coverage for 24 million, it now lets insurance companies stop offering basic services like maternity care, check-ups for kids, prescription drugs or even hospital and doctor visits.
The AHCA is Bad Policy
· The AHCA is a bad bill that keeps getting worse.
· At a time when Americans are concerned about health care being too expensive, it raises premiums 20 percent, charges people over 50 as much as five times more than younger enrollees and increases out-of-pocket costs and deductibles, while leaving 24 million more people uninsured.
· The changes made yesterday to Essential Health Benefits makes coverage worse for almost everybody.
· It effectively eliminates annual out-of-pocket caps and reinstates annual and lifetime coverage limits, hurting those with the most serious illnesses, like cancer.
· And it guts protections for preexisting conditions, because most insurance policies won't include coverage for essential benefits, like maternity care, resulting in soaring costs for those who need them.
· Medicaid cuts and changes to health insurance rules will dramatically limit access to mental health and opioid use disorder treatment, even with a last-minute infusion of laughably inadequate funding in the bill.
The AHCA is Bad Politics
Brand new poll from Quinnipiac University has only 17% support for this bill -- 56% opposition. Opposition grows to over 60% with voters over 50.
· White voters without a college degree - the core of Trump's vote - oppose it 48% to 22%.
· Only 41% of REPUBLICANS support it.
Even a growing group of Republicans in the House opposed the bill specifically citing cost increases and coverage losses.
· The co-chair of the moderate caucus of Republicans in the House said the bill "will lead to loss of coverage and make insurance unaffordable for too many Americans." This bill hurts almost every American, but it hurts those that voted for President Trump the most - hiking premiums and cutting tax credits in rural areas, raising costs for people over 50 and removing the guarantee of coverage for to treat substance use disorders like opioid addiction.
· LA Times: Trump voters would be among the biggest losers in Republicans' Obamacare replacement plan · CNBC: Many Trump voters would pay a lot more for health insurance under Trumpcare bill · New York Times: Trump Supporters Have the Most to Lose in the G.O.P. Repeal Bill · Boston Globe: Obamacare repeal could hurt rural areas - a key Trump constituency Republicans are being pushed to vote for a bad bill - one they know hurts their constituents and hurts them politically - but it has no prospect of passage in the Senate. It's dead on arrival.
