CHARLESTON, W.Va. — With a vote on a new health care bill to repeal and replace Obamacare set for later this week in the U.S. Senate, opponents are calling on Senator Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) to vote “no.”
“We are asking that our lawmakers work in a bipartisan matter and that they don’t just shove something through that could harm the constituents in this state,” said Chantal Fields, executive director of West Virginians for Affordable Health Care, regarding the Graham-Cassidy bill.
The bill, sponsored by Senators Bill Cassidy (R-LA) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC), could impact a third of West Virginia’s population, Fields said.
“Roughly, 650,000 West Virginians are covered by Medicaid in the state,” she said. “So anything that happens to the funding for that program has real consequences to the health of our state.”
By 2027, Fields said West Virginia could lose up to $2 billion in health care funds — creating a devastating blow to the state’s economy.
“It’s absolutely essential that we have healthy citizens. Healthy citizens are citizens that can work, that can provide for our economy,” she said. “If you have folks that can’t get their health care and they are taken out of the workforce, you have an economy that starts to shrink.”
Fields spoke at the WVAHC’s Inaugural Medicaid Summit held Monday at the Holiday Inn in South Charleston.
The threat of losing the Medicaid expansion remains a concern for many West Virginians, including Lora Wilkerson with the Charleston American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network. She was on Capitol Hill Monday to protest the Graham-Cassidy bill specifically for her three year old granddaughter who is a cancer survivor.
“All I can think about is how this will affect my granddaughter,” Wilkerson told MetroNews. “As any grandmother, you’re going to fight for your grandchildren. It just makes me really sad that we can’t work together in a non-partisan way to come up with a bill that works.”
Wilkerson’s granddaughter, Elinor, was diagnosed with rhabdomyolysis in 2016 at just 18 months old. It’s a rare form of cancer that occurs when muscle tissue is damaged. She is now cancer-free.
“Without the Medicaid expansion, we wouldn’t have been able to keep good care of her,” Wilkerson said. Elinor will depend on Medicaid for the rest of her life.
“She’s three. Her fight is not over.”
Leaders from across the nation are also working to encourage Capito to vote against the bill — that includes New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio who was a guest on Monday’s “580 Live” with Charleston Mayor Danny Jones heard on MetroNews affiliate 580-WCHS.
“My only point to her today would be: Demand those answers,” de Blasio said. “If you can’t get an answer of how this is going to address the opioid crisis and actually make our efforts to fight opioid addiction — if you can’t get that answer, you shouldn’t vote for it.”
According to the Graham-Cassidy bill, more than 150,000 West Virginians could lose their health care. West Virginia hospitals could lose up to $500 million in funding over the next decade.
De Blasio said he dislikes how the bill has been “rushed” without looking at the ramifications through public hearings.
“This is one of the most fundamental issues for the entire nation. There’s no way you could make a decision like this without inviting in the people affected,” he said.
Jones said mayors have a different job than legislators in Washington. De Blasio agreed and said mayors don’t “look the other way” if something is not working in his or her city.
“I do think sometimes folks in Washington get disconnected of the day-to-day lives of people and that’s why you could think about passing legislation without even bothering to have hearings because if you’re far away from people, maybe that somehow makes sense. We would never think that way as mayors,” he told Jones.
The bill, in its current form, includes block grants to allow states to create their own insurance marketplaces as well as the end of Medicaid expansion by 2020. States could also waive certain provisions within the Affordable Care Act.
Capito has not said how she will vote on the bill. U.S. Senator Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) said he plans to vote against it.