Letter: Senate bill would have cut local health care

According to the CBO, the Senate AHCA bill would have resulted in about $800 billion in cuts to Medicaid over 10 years. The Tri-Cities share of this loss would be about $49 million per year and 13,000 local people would lose health insurance.

Two-thirds of Medicaid dollars are for eldercare; this program also funds 49 percent of all births, 30 percent of disabled services, and 60 percent of children’s healthcare. These devastating cuts would have taken money from the poor, the old, the disabled, single moms and children in our local economy to fund tax cuts for the wealthy and to boost military spending.

This $49 million pays for medical services, hospitals, pharmacies, nursing homes, doctor’s offices, physical therapy, schools, home health care, and other support services. If this money had been lost to our local economy it would potentially have resulted in an additional loss of about 1,700 local service jobs like health care providers, nurses’ aides and other workers, store clerks, and the jobs to administer these programs An added result, the disabled, infirm, and elders who are unable to pay for nursing homes or other care would have been “on the street” or the state would have needed to care for them.

This story was originally published July 29, 2017 at 7:44 PM with the headline "Letter: Senate bill would have cut local health care."