The Senator is No Magician

by
Leslie D. Mark

Dear Healthcare Legislative Director,

We know that you’re the DC insider and person-on-the-mat for the Senator when it comes to healthcare legislation and fixing issues with ACA (yet, still committed to holding harmless the many Americans caught in today’s political crosshairs).

But, tell me you weren’t just a little bit surprised by the re-introduction of TrumpCare in the guise of Cassidy-Graham?

Tell us you are just as disbelieving as we are with this last-ditch effort to repeal and replace before the end of the month — when you will no longer have the “simple” 51 vote by all-GOP to pass it? We’ve read that it’s facing a very steep climb, but we are not so sanguine.

You might ask why?

We would say because it proposes a spending cap on Medicaid; because it favors a block grant program, allotting a fixed amount of money to flow into each state from the Federal budget; and theoretically, at least, because it gives states more leeway to spend federal dollars on health care as they see fit, though KS and MO have long just been happy to send $1.8b+ a year to DC without seeing any of that money flow back!

Are you cynically counting on that money for a tax package to benefit the crème-de-la-crème?

This September Hail Mary actually means less money overall for states to spend and jeopardizes insurance coverage for 32 million more Americans. We aren’t stupid. America is not going to do MORE with LESS.

The Senator is no magician.

This is NOT what we have been talking about all summer - no. You know it. The Senator knows it. The voters know it. So we’re writing to ask: what’s the game plan? How can we, all the grassroots movement folk — and even the apolitical folk — help redirect you and your boss to meaningful conversation?

We are tired of watching billions of tax dollars from KS and MO fill the pot and never come back, while so many rural hospitals madly juggle their budgets. We are distressed by the inability — outright inability — of neighbors and family members to find navigators to help them work through insurance selections for the upcoming enrollment year. Let’s just remember for a minute that real folks’ lives are in play here. No joking!

Certainly not the JOKE that is Cassidy-Graham.

Looking forward to hearing back from you or the Senator at your earliest possible convenience.