U.S. Rep. Tom Reed, R-Corning, said Tuesday that as many as 100,000 residents of the 23rd Congressional District could lose their health insurance if the Senate health care bill were to become law.
That’s almost one of every seven of the 717,000 residents of the 11-county congressional district. Reed campaigned for more than six years for the repeal of the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare.
The status quo is not an option, Reed said. Obamacare is is collapsing as more insurance carriers pull out of the individual exchanges, he said. He repeated the Republican talking point that Obamacare is in a death spiral.
Reacting to charges by Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul that people will die if Republicans repeal the Affordable Care Act, Reed labeled it “political rhetoric. Nobody wants anyone to die.”
In his weekly press call, Reed said it’s not clear if the Republican-controlled Senate will vote on the American Health Care Act will come to a vote Thursday as was proposed by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
[McConnell announced later in the afternoon that the vote on the American Health Care Act would be put off until after the July 4 recess].
The Congressional Budget Office estimated Monday that the Senate healthcare bill, drafted in secrecy, could remove 22 million people from the ranks of the insured under the Affordable Care Act.
Reed questioned the Congressional Budget Office’s estimate that 22 million Americans would lose health care insurance under the American Health Care Act. “That’s their estimate,” he said. “We’re looking at those numbers,” Reed told reporters. “We take that into consideration.”
He did not comment on whether he would feel more comfortable if only 10 million or 15 million people would lose their health insurance. He said he would like the number as close to zero as possible.
The Senate bill cuts Medicaid funding by more than the $800 billion then the House Republican health care bill. Those savings go largely to the top 4 percent in the form of tax cuts. “I believe in reducing the tax burden across the spectrum,” Reed said in answer to a question why it seemed the wealthy benefited more from the health care cuts than middle-class taxpayers.
Reed said instead of 138 percent of the poverty level, he would set the Medicaid eligibility level at 100 percent and provide tax credits for those between 101 and 138 percent so they could buy health insurance from a private company.
Reed replied angrily Monday to an email from Gov. Andrew Cuomo calling on the New York congressional delegation to defeat Senate Republican’s health plan.
“I’m going to fight back,” Reed said. The Collins-Faso amendment in the GOP healthcare plan would bar states like New York from passing Medicaid costs on the counties, the Corning Republican said.
Cuomo said the GOP healthcare plan will trigger a $2.3 billion federal Collins-Faso tax on all New York taxpayers to make up for the loss of the counties share of Medicaid costs to the state.
That drew Reed’s statement that Cuomo was “a liar.” On Tuesday, Reed said that the Collins-Faso amendment seeks to “take the tax burden off the backs of property taxpayers” who are “tapped out by their property taxes.”
(Contact reporter Rick Miller at rmiller@oleantimesherald.com. Follow him on Twitter, @RMillerOTH)
