Senators Lindsay Graham (R-SC) and Bill Cassidy, MD (R-LA) outlined a new proposal to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA). It would also eliminate the Prevention and Public Health Fund, which provides 12% of the funding at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Republicans have until September 30 to try to repeal the ACA with only a 50 vote majority. This proposal is rapidly gaining traction in the Senate. Contact your Senators ASAP: Oppose the latest effort to cut ACA and PPHF: 10 days left.
Despite claims to the contrary, this plan is just another ACA repeal bill that would have the same devastating effects as the previous repeal bills. Specifically:
- Medicaid expansion: The plan would completely eliminate the ACA's expansion of Medicaid, which has extended coverage to 11 million low-income adults.
- Marketplace subsidies: It would also completely eliminate the ACA's marketplace subsidies, which currently help almost 9 million people afford coverage. Unlike under earlier Republican bills, which substituted highly inadequate tax credits, moderate-income working people buying individual market coverage would no longer be guaranteed any assistance.
- Block grant instead of expansion and subsidies: In place of Medicaid expansion and marketplace subsidies, the plan would substitute a block grant to states that would:
- Provide $239 billion less in federal support for coverage between 2020 and 2026. Nationwide block grant funding by 2026 would be at least $41 billion, or 17 percent, below current law funding for Medicaid expansion and tax credits.
- Dramatically redistribute funding across states, meaning that many states - especially Medicaid expansion states and states with high marketplace costs - would see far deeper cuts.
- End completely after 2026 - as if the need to help low- and moderate-income people afford coverage would just disappear overnight.
Because a block grant provides a fixed amount of funding for states each year, the proposal also leave states on the hook for any and all unexpected costs from recessions, natural disasters, public health emergencies, or prescription drug price spikes.
Please take action today to protect the public's health. NACCHO has called on you a lot this year; but we need to mobilize one more time to oppose the Graham-Cassidy ACA proposal. Take action now: Oppose the latest effort to cut ACA and PPHF: 10 days left
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Eli Briggs
Sr. Government Affairs Director
National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO)
Washington DC
202-507-4194
ebriggs@naccho.org------------------------------