GOP health-care initiative igniting broad opposition

Are they all wrong, the Republican and Democratic governors, doctors, nurses, insurance companies, patient- advocacy groups and religious leaders who warn that the Republican health-care plan is a disaster waiting to happen? No, they aren’t.

And yet, GOP leaders in Congress and Republican President Donald J. Trump are undaunted as they push ahead to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare). It’s clear politics, and not the well-being of millions of American people, are behind this partisan juggernaut.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, had planned to put the revised Senate version of the GOP health-care plan up for a vote this week. However, fate intervened, and he has delayed its consideration.

U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, a voice of reason and political moderation on this issue, underwent surgery last week to remove a blood clot from above his left eye. McCain, an elder statesman on Capitol Hill, was advised by his doctors to stay in Arizona for a week to recover.

We wonder if the Republicans in Congress who are so eager to ram through their health-care initiative asked themselves this question: How many low-income Americans who stand to lose the coverage they now receive under Medicaid could afford to have expensive surgery to remove a blood clot over an eye?

The answer can be found in a statement issued by Ohio’s Republican Gov. John R. Kasich on the Senate health-reform bill:

“The Senate plan is still unacceptable. Its cuts to Medicaid are too deep and at the same time, it fails to give states the ability to innovate in order to cope with those reductions. It also doesn’t do enough to stabilize the insurance market, where costs are rising unsustainably and companies are simply dropping coverage. These shortcomings flow from the fact that the Senate plan commits the same error as Obamacare – it’s not bipartisan. It fails to bring solutions from both sides to the table that can ensure we aren’t simply replacing one divisive plan with another. We can still fix this and repeal and replace Obamacare with ideas that will work, but it means having leaders from both sides sitting down together and working in good faith on solutions that responsibly manage Medicaid and stabilize our insurance market. I’m hopeful that will happen, and I know that a bipartisan group of governors, including myself, stands ready to help in any way to provide an affordable, sustainable and responsible system of health care for the American people.”

Kasich isn’t the only prominent Republican officeholder who has been urging a bipartisan approach to finding a cure for the ailing Obamacare.

Indeed, McCain has expressed concern about the provision in the GOP Senate bill that would throw thousands of Arizonans off Medicaid.

The fate of the legislation looked deeply uncertain in the Senate last week. In addition to two “no” votes from moderate Susan Collins of Maine and conservative Rand Paul of Kentucky, there were at least a half-dozen other Republican senators who were withholding support from or expressing reservations about the bill that McConnell released Thursday, according to the Associated Press.

The majority leader has no votes to spare because Democrats are united in their opposition. McCain’s absence means it would become impossible for McConnell to round up the votes needed to move forward this week.

The delay, however, could be a good thing for the country if Republican leaders in Congress listen to their party’s governors and to health-care providers about the flaws in the current legislation.

The insurance-industry lobby and the association that represents Blue Cross Blue Shield plans came out strongly against one of the innovations in the latest draft, according to the New York Times.

Consumer groups, patient advocates and organizations representing doctors, hospitals, drug-abuse treatment centers and religious leaders also have expressed opposition to the bill.

They, and not the politicians in Washington, are on the front lines of health care in the country.

Their voices must be heard before Republicans in Congress eyeing the 2018 elections put America on a path to health-care disaster – for millions of people.

A bipartisan measure is the only responsible way of addressing this singularly important issue.