Mixed reaction to GOP health care bill

March 09--Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney sees plenty to oppose in the health care bill Republican leaders are hustling through committees in the House of Representatives as a proposed replacement for the Affordable Care Act, the 2010 law their party has fought for years to dismantle.

From the Cold Spring Democrat's standpoint, the GOP's American Health Care Act gets everything backwards. He argues it would cost millions of Americans their health coverage by slashing the tax credits they could get to help shoulder insurance premiums under the Affordable Care Act; cut funding for Medicare, Medicaid and Planned Parenthood; cut taxes for the wealthy, and likely drive up budget deficits and the national debt as a result.

"It's a lousy bill, and it's a mean-spirited and incomplete bill, because it doesn't do anything to improve health care," Maloney, whose district includes all of Orange County, said in a phone interview on Wednesday. "It's the worst of both worlds. That's the way I describe it."

He said that like other House members who took office after the Affordable Care Act was enacted, he has been "desperate" to work with Republicans to fix its flaws.

"We want to have that conversation," he said. "Sadly, this doesn't do that."

Rep. John Faso, the Republican freshman representing Ulster and Sullivan counties in New York's 19th District, reacted cautiously to the bill in a prepared statement, describing it as one step in a "larger multiphased process" to deliver "affordable, patient-centered healthcare." He said he was "heartened" by the bill's inclusion of two of the Affordable Care Act's most popular provisions: the ability of young adults to stay on their parents' health insurance plans until age 26, and the protection for patients with preexisting conditions.

"As a member of the Budget Committee, I look forward to carefully reviewing this bill in the coming days," Faso said.

Speakers at a health inequality conference at the SUNY Orange campus in Middletown on Wednesday spoke about the legislative struggle under way in Washington while avoiding the political minefield it posed.

Linda Muller, president and CEO of the Newburgh-based Cornerstone Family Healthcare, urged the audience at Orange County's Reaching for Health Equity symposium to dig into the details of the legislation.

"We don't control Medicaid policy, insurance companies' policies, or how federal and state funds flow," Muller said. "So, it's our job and your challenge to learn what's in TrumpCare and ObamaCare. We have to learn what those changes mean, so we can educate our community."

Jonathan Schiller, Orange Regional Medical Center's chief operating officer, suggested the problems that prompted that day's conference will persist with any outcome to the debate in Washington.

"No matter what happens for us on the federal level, it's not going to change the health inequities that we have here in our community," Schiller said.

cmckenna@th-record.com

Staff writer Daniel Axelrod contributed to this report.

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