WASHINGTON, D.C. — “Far lacking” is how U.S. Senator Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) describes the version of the U.S. Senate’s proposed replacement for the Affordable Care Act that was postponed from a scheduled vote this week on Capitol Hill.
“Repeal and replace and fixing Obamacare is important, but it’s got to be done the right way,” Capito said on Wednesday’s MetroNews “Talkline.”
A day earlier, she released a joint statement with U.S. Senator Rob Portman (R-Oh.) opposing the Senate health care plan.
Hoppy Kercheval, host of “Talkline,” asked Capito, “Were you ever close to just supporting it — as is?”
“No,” Capito answered, “because of what it does to the Medicaid portion.”
.@SenCapito explains the rationale of her opposition to the Senate health care plan to @HoppyKercheval. WATCH: https://t.co/wkudfIAoe1 pic.twitter.com/cE3Vcl2G09
— MetroNews (@WVMetroNews) June 28, 2017
Called the Better Care Reconciliation Act, the Senate health plan would phase out the Medicaid expansion beginning in 2021, make deeper cuts to traditional Medicaid and allow states to seek permission to reduce required coverage, the ACA’s “essential health benefits.”
Additionally, BCRA — as currently written — would allocate $2 billion to states in 2018 for the opioid crisis which, Capito argued, was far from enough to adequately address the scope of the problem.
After working behind the scenes to attempt to make changes to the proposal, Capito said she had planned to announce her intentions not to support the Senate plan even before the Tuesday announcement of the vote delay.
Capito repeatedly voted to repeal ACA while serving in the U.S. House.
“We have to fix this,” Capito said. “I’m willing to go with some systemic changes, but this was an overreach.”
U.S. Senator Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) previously said he would not support the Better Care Reconciliation Act.
In it were the repeal the individual mandate, an end to most ACA taxes on corporations and the wealthy to pay for insurance subsidies and changes to age ratings so people over the age of 65 pay as much as five times more for health insurance than younger people.
“We are delighted that Senator Capito and Senator Manchin came out against the bill because, frankly, it was a bad bill for West Virginia,” said Perry Bryant, board president for West Virginians for Affordable Health Care.
Perry had been expecting to see a more moderate bill from the Senate than what the U.S. House approved with the American Health Care Act earlier this year.
“This bill that came out, it made some improvements in the House version but it also was meaner than the House version in many regards, particularly in Medicaid,” he said.
Capito was at the White House on Tuesday with other Republican U.S. senators to meet with President Donald Trump.
Trump, she said, indicated reforms to ACA exchanges, the insurance marketplaces for people who don’t have other options either through private employers or Medicaid, would be the priority.
“What that would mean is any kind of Medicaid reforms or any kind of extra money for opioid and drug abuse and any kind of other things that are presently in the Senate bill, those would probably all fall off,” Capito said.
It could lead to a narrow bill focused on the exchanges when members of the U.S. Senate return to Capitol Hill after the Independence Day recess.
“Hopefully, we can find a solution here,” Capito said.