McCaskill: Healthcare bill ‘hikes costs for working families’

U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill says the Senate’s healthcare bill is “exactly what you’d expect when the future of healthcare gets negotiated in a secret backroom deal.”

According to McCaskill, the bill “hikes costs for working families, strips protections from Missourians who’ve been sick before and slices critical resources for rural healthcare and anti-opioid efforts.”

McCaskill said this bill is a “disaster for Missouri that seemingly only benefits insurance companies and the very wealthy.”

Missouri’s Republican Senator, Roy Blunt, disagrees saying the bill “preserves access to care for people with pre-existing conditions, strengthens Medicaid and does not change Medicare.”

Blunt said he will carefully review the final legislation and how it will affect the problems Missourians face under Obamacare.

According to McCaskill’s office, the senator recently introduced legislation to protect Missourians’ access to health insurance by allowing those in “bare counties”, counties with no insurers participating in the individual insurance marketplaces, access to the same insurance plans offered to members of Congress and congressional staff.

Blunt agrees the 25 “bare counties” in Missouri are an issue.

“In my state, 25 counties, at this point, appear they’ll have nobody offering insurance, with a law on the books saying you have to buy insurance even though that insurance wouldn’t be available,” Blunt said.

McCaskill’s new bill is her latest action to address problems with the Affordable Care Act. She has worked to remove some reporting requirements on small businesses and introduced legislation to address a provision leading to problematic Medicare reimbursements to hospitals. She’s also backed legislation to improve healthcare options for pregnant women.

Medicaid provides health insurance for children, low-income adults, elderly and disabled residents. About 30 million people across the country use the program.

Missouri has about 6 million residents; 28% are considered low-income.

In Missouri, there’s about 1 million people on Medicaid; about half of which are children. The Senate’s healthcare bill would cut billions from the program.

According to McCaskill’s office, the overhaul of America’s healthcare system being pursued by Republicans in Congress has so far been opposed by doctors, nurses and groups representing the country’s seniors and children’s health advocates. The overhaul approved by the U.S. House is also opposed by most Americans.

As of Friday, there were five Republican Senators who said they couldn’t vote for the bill as written. They said it “doesn’t do enough to repeal the ACA and lower costs.”