WASHINGTON - Republican senators have finally unveiled their version of a health care bill aimed at repealing the Affordable Care Act, former President Barack Obama's signature legislative achievement.

After weeks of secret meetings, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell initially released the proposal Thursday only to Republican Senators before publishing the 142 page measure online.

"We have to act," McConnell said on the Senate floor, and added "Obamacare is a direct attack on the middle class."

President Barack Obama on Thursday spoke out against the proposed GOP Senate bill.

"I recognize that repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act has become a core tenet of the Republican Party," Obama wrote in a Facebook post. "Still, I hope that our Senators, many of whom I know well, step back and measure what's really at stake, and consider that the rationale for action, on health care or any other issue, must be something more than simply undoing something that Democrats did."

The legislation was crafted as a compromise between the current health care law, commonly known as Obamacare, and a measure approved by the House of Representatives last month, according to Republican aides and lobbyists who reviewed the bill Wednesday.

The bill would cut federal funding for Medicaid, a state-based program for low-income people, abolish taxes on the wealthy, and terminate funding for Planned Parenthood, a women's health care provider, according to the proposal.
Aides and lobbyists who reviewed the draft say it largely reflects the House version, although there are notable differences.

The House measure links federal insurance subsidies to age, while the Senate version bases subsidies on income. The Senate bill ends an expansion of Medicaid funding for states more slowly than the House legislation but imposes larger long-term reductions on the program. The Senate proposal also drops the House's waivers authorizing states to allow health insurers to increase premiums on some people with pre-existing health conditions.

23 million would lose coverage

An estimated 23 million people could lose their health care under the plan narrowly passed by the House, according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office. (Source: voanews)

Story Date: June 23, 2017