On eve of Senate healthcare bill reveal, White House brings in Missourians to talk about problems with Obamacare

June 21--WASHINGTON -- On the eve of Senate Republicans revealing their version of a health insurance overhaul, the Trump White House on Wednesday brought six Missourians here to talk about their problems with the current Affordable Care Act.

The six were from central and western Missouri, where Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas City announced recently it would pull out of Obamacare exchanges at the end of the year. Some said the Affordable Care Act had worked for them in the beginning, but that rising premiums and deductibles had made coverage unaffordable, and that the pullout of the last provider in their counties makes them worried that they will have no viable insurance coverage options at all.

One, 45-year-old Candace Fowler, a farmer from Henry County, Mo., said she has a rare eye disease that threatens her eyesight without treatment. By year's end she could have no insurance options in the Obamacare exchange. She and the other Missourians, as well as a doctor from Iowa, spoke to reporters after telling their stories to Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price and other top Trump administration officials in a West Wing meeting.

"So it is very much concerning to me what they are going to do" in trying to replace Obamacare, Fowler said.

Referring to Price and the other Trump officials, she said: "They didn't offer any plans, they didn't offer any inside advice about what is going to happen in the future. But it did feel like we, at least, had people who are listening, and that goes a long way."

President Donald Trump often meets with people telling similar stories as he travels the country. Republicans are attempting to use these stories to bolster their claims that Obamacare is broken beyond repair and build support for their controversial attempts to replace it.

But Democrats, who have criticized both the American Health Care Act passed last month by House Republicans and the secrecy surrounding Senate Republicans' efforts to come up with their own bill, say the problems these Missourians talked about Wednesday were because Republicans are purposely undermining Obamacare.

Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., accused the Trump White House of "sabotage" in withholding or threatening to withhold federal subsidies designed to prop up the state exchanges.

"They are creating this level of uncertainty that is leading to the disruption of these individual markets," McCaskill said. "But even with the premium increases, the vast majority of the people who get their insurance in Missouri on the exchanges are still going to have reasonable costs because of the subsidies that they get from the government."

For one Missouri family, however, the current options seem to have run out for the father.

Stephanie McClain, 37, is an insurance agent in Clinton, Mo., who sells health care coverage. Her husband, Tommie, 40, decided to go back to school two years ago and has been buying insurance on the exchange. Their four children are covered under her policy, but they now have discovered that with the pullout of BlueCross in their county, they cannot afford to add Tommie to her work policy.

They are "unsure of what we will do in 2018," Stephanie McClain said.

At the beginning, the Affordable Care Act "worked to some extent," said Stephanie McClain.

"People that had cancer could get coverage," she said. "People that couldn't afford coverage, they could get it for $30 or $40 a month with cost-sharing, at a $500 deductible. It made sense. But over the years, it has just dwindled away. There are no options. Premiums are high, deductibles are high -- if you qualify."

McClain said she has not seen any evidence of Clayton-based Centene, which announced last week it would offer insurance in some Missouri counties it did not disclose, coming into the counties where she sells insurance.

McCaskill has offered legislation that would allow people in "bare" counties without exchange options to buy into the Washington, D.C. market that members of Congress and their staffs can take advantage of. She and other Democrats argue that Obamacare can be fixed, but Republicans -- citing stories like the Missourians told -- say the entire Affordable Care Act infrastructure needs to be dismantled.

Democrats point to analysis showing that the GOP plan in the House offered could put 23 million Americans out of health care altogether through Medicaid cuts and skyrocketing premiums for older Americans. But some in that category are already facing the prospect of lost coverage under Obamacare.

Jim Blundell, 63, of Lincoln, Mo., told Price and reporters that with the Blue Cross pullout he won't be able to afford insurance and faces the prospect of having to pay a tax for non-coverage until he qualifies for Medicare next year. He was laid off by Waterloo Industries in Sedalia, Mo., in 2013, he said, and his wife has been in a nursing home under Medicaid coverage.

Besides Price, several other top Trump officials met with the group, including counseler Kellyanne Conway.

She said that repealing and replacing Obamacare was "not merely a campaign promise, it is an imperative" for the president.

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