Lynch: Reduce cost on health plans

June 24--The proposed Republican health care bill released by Senate leadership this week will "kill Massachusetts" without addressing any of the real flaws in Obamacare, Congressman Stephen Lynch said yesterday.

"The two plans I've seen so far, they don't reduce the cost of health care, unfortunately," Lynch said during an appearance on Boston Herald Radio's "Morning Meeting" program, referring to the GOP plans passed by the House and proposed in the Senate.

"It shifts the cost from healthy people to sick people, it shifts the cost from younger people to older people, there's a lot of cost-shifting going on but not cost-reduction, and that's the problem," he said.

The South Boston Democrat, who was one of the few members of his party to vote against the Affordable Care Act in 2010, stressed that the legislation needs to be fixed and that not enough has been done to rein in the overall cost of health care.

"The real goal here is to try to lower the cost of health care," Lynch said. "That's really where Obamacare fails."

The Senate is scheduled to vote Thursday on the Republican-backed bill. The Republican-majority House passed a similar version of health care legislation last month.

President Trump has urged lawmakers to pass the overhaul, which features billions of dollars in cuts to Medicaid, the health care program for the poor, disabled and nursing home residents, and dramatic tax cuts for wealthy Americans.

Lynch said the shift in Medicaid funding -- from 50-50 state and federal funding to roughly 70 percent funded by states -- will be particularly devastating to states that took advantage of Obamacare's Medicaid expansion in recent years, including Massachusetts, saying: "Medicaid expansion, that'll kill Massachusetts."

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