Edi­tor’s Note: The fol­low­ing was trans­mit­ted by fac­sim­i­le this evening to the offices of Dave Reichert, Greg Walden, Dan New­house, and Cathy McMor­ris Rodgers. All of the afore­men­tioned indi­vid­u­als rep­re­sent por­tions of Wash­ing­ton and Ore­gon in the Unit­ed States House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives as Repub­li­cans. We are repub­lish­ing this com­mu­ni­ca­tion here on the Cas­ca­dia Advo­cate as an open letter.

Dear Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Reichert, McMor­ris Rodgers, New­house, and Walden:

Tomor­row, at the behest of Don­ald Trump, the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives is poised to vote on a bill that would evis­cer­ate the Patient Pro­tec­tion and Afford­able Care Act, signed into law sev­en years ago today by Pres­i­dent Barack Obama.

We implore you to put the good of our region and our coun­try before par­ty and vote against this dis­as­trous, ill-con­ceived legislation.

You may not have sup­port­ed the Patient Pro­tec­tion Act or vot­ed for it when it was before Con­gress in 2010, but it has been a life­saver for count­less Amer­i­cans, includ­ing many of your own con­stituents. Despite glitch­es with its imple­men­ta­tion, the law has helped mil­lions of peo­ple gain access to sore­ly need­ed healthcare.

Many of the Amer­i­cans who ben­e­fit most from the Patient Pro­tec­tion Act work long hours at mul­ti­ple jobs, or are busy car­ing for ill rel­a­tives, or are rais­ing their chil­dren. They sim­ply do not have time to reach out to you to explain how pas­sage of H.R. 1628 would hurt them. They do not have the means to employ pro­fes­sion­al lob­by­ists who can speak for them and advo­cate for them.

But they are pre­cise­ly the peo­ple you should be think­ing of as tomor­row’s vote approach­es. Each one of them has a story.

Kandy Kim­ble of Kit­ti­tas Coun­ty is one of the Pacif­ic North­west­ern­ers whose lives have been pro­found­ly changed for the bet­ter by the Patient Pro­tec­tion Act.

“Self-employed for many years, she went with­out health insur­ance, plan­ning to wait a few more years until she was eli­gi­ble for Medicare,” explained Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee’s office in a Medi­um post pub­lished short­ly after the new year.

“In 2014, she had a health emer­gency when eight bleed­ing ulcers were found. A three-day hos­pi­tal stay in inten­sive care result­ed in a bill of almost $70,000. After she was dis­charged, she sought insur­ance cov­er­age through Wash­ing­ton Health­plan­find­er, the insur­ance exchange.”

“She was lat­er diag­nosed with a life-threat­en­ing heart con­di­tion. Thanks to her insur­ance, she is able to receive the med­ica­tion she needs and reg­u­lar­ly vis­it with a car­di­ol­o­gist. Kandy will be eli­gi­ble for Medicare this September.”

The Con­gres­sion­al Bud­get Office esti­mates that gut­ting the Patient Pro­tec­tion Act will result in tens of mil­lions of peo­ple los­ing their health insur­ance nation­wide.

A few days ago, those of you rep­re­sent­ing dis­tricts in Wash­ing­ton received a let­ter from Gov­er­nor Inslee and Insur­ance Com­mis­sion­er Mike Krei­dler warn­ing that H.R. 1628 would be cat­a­stroph­ic for the Ever­green State.

They summed up the dire con­se­quences as fol­lows:

• 700,000 peo­ple will lose cov­er­age (600,000 through Med­ic­aid, up to 100,000 in the indi­vid­ual health insur­ance market)
• The unin­sured rate will go up from 5.8 per­cent to 15 per­cent — high­er than before the ACA and high­er than pro­jec­tions of ACA repeal with no replacement
• To cov­er those los­ing Med­ic­aid cov­er­age would cost the state $1.3 bil­lion per year by 2023 ($1.8 bil­lion by 2028)
• A new penal­ty is put in place when a con­sumer or patient tries to pur­chase insur­ance after a break in coverage.

The Ore­gon Health Author­i­ty (OHA) and the Depart­ment of Con­sumer and Busi­ness Ser­vices (DCBS) say the impact to the Beaver State will be sim­i­lar­ly awful.

Their analy­sis finds that Trump­cuts would:

• Reduce cov­er­age: As many as 465,000 Ore­go­ni­ans will lose health cov­er­age, includ­ing approx­i­mate­ly 80,000 next year. Oregon’s unin­sured rate will triple from 5 per­cent to more than 15 percent.
• Reduce fed­er­al fund­ing: To main­tain Med­ic­aid enroll­ment, we esti­mate the AHCA [Trump­cuts] would shift $190 mil­lion in costs to Ore­gon start­ing in 2020 approach­ing $1 bil­lion in 2023. The cumu­la­tive cost shift would be $2.6 bil­lion over the next six years.
• Reduce eco­nom­ic activ­i­ty: [Trump­cuts] risks the loss of more than 23,300 health care jobs that were cre­at­ed in Ore­gon after the ACA was implemented.

But per­haps what is most damn­ing about H.R. 1628 is that the Con­gres­sion­al Bud­get Office has cal­cu­lat­ed that H.R. 1628 would actu­al­ly result in more peo­ple being unin­sured than if the Patient Pro­tec­tion Act were sim­ply repealed.

“One mil­lion more Amer­i­cans would have health insur­ance with a clean repeal than with the Repub­li­can replace­ment plan, accord­ing to CBO esti­mates,” not­ed The New York Times’ Mar­got Sanger-Katz in a report pub­lished two days ago. This find­ing alone is rea­son enough to vote down this immoral, irre­spon­si­ble legislation.

Research shows that Amer­i­cans are resound­ing­ly opposed to H.R. 1628.

Respect­ed poll­ster Quin­ni­pac report­ed today that 56% of respon­dents sur­veyed are opposed to Trump­cuts, with only 17% in favor. That’s a three-to-one mar­gin. Every age demo­graph­ic, gen­der, and eth­nic­i­ty oppos­es the bill, Quin­ni­pac says.

Your col­league Jaime Her­rera-Beut­ler has already decid­ed to vote no on H.R. 1628 as present­ly con­sti­tut­ed. “In the final analy­sis, this bill falls short,” she declared in a state­ment released by her office today.

Your col­league Char­lie Dent of Penn­syl­va­nia went even fur­ther with his appraisal.

“I believe this bill, in its cur­rent form, will lead to the loss of cov­er­age and make insur­ance unaf­ford­able for too many Amer­i­cans, par­tic­u­lar­ly for low-to-mod­er­ate income and old­er indi­vid­u­als,” he said, offer­ing a blunt assess­ment.

Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, in med­i­cine, there is an axiom that guides the work of doc­tors, nurs­es, and care­givers: First, do no harm. Trump­cuts woe­ful­ly fails this pre­cept and deserves to be reject­ed by the U.S. House.

On behalf of the board and staff of the North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute and in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the mil­lions of Amer­i­cans opposed to Trump­cuts, I urge you to put the peo­ple of our region and coun­try first by vot­ing NO on H.R. 1628.

Sin­cere­ly,

Andrew Vil­leneuve
Founder and exec­u­tive director
North­west Pro­gres­sive Institute