U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell released the GOP’s health care overhaul on Thursday. The 142-page proposal includes massive cuts to Medicaid, cuts in taxes for the wealthy and defunding of Planned Parenthood for at least one year. The Congressional Budget Office has not had a chance to score the Senate’s bill yet. Under the House bill, the CBO found found that 23 million Americans would lose their coverage by 2026.
Both versions of the Republican plan to fix the American health care system would make things worse, not better, according to groups that represent a variety of physicians.
NBC News reported that pediatrician, cancer specialist, cardiologist and family doctor groups were denouncing the Senate version of the bill within hours of its release Thursday.
"The Senate draft health care bill is literally heartless," American Heart Association CEO Nancy Brown said.
Among the reasons so many medical professionals oppose the changes Republicans have proposed to the Affordable Care Act, or "Obamacare," is that it reduces funding for Medicaid, the state-federal health plan that covers many low-income, disabled and pregnant people, as well as a large portion of American children.
