SHAME! Republican-controlled U.S. House votes to take away healthcare from millions

In a brazen, whol­ly inde­fen­si­ble act of mal­ice and cru­el­ty, the Repub­li­can-con­trolled Unit­ed States House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives vot­ed today to take away the health­care of mil­lions of Amer­i­cans. By a vote of 217–213, with­out a sin­gle Demo­c­ra­t­ic vote, the House passed a mon­strous bill that, if approved by the Sen­ate and signed by Don­ald Trump, would amount to a death sen­tence for many in our country.

The roll call from the Pacif­ic North­west was as fol­lows:

Vot­ing Aye: Repub­li­cans Cathy McMor­ris Rodgers (WA), Greg Walden (OR), Mike Simp­son and Raúl Labrador (ID), Don Young (AK)

Vot­ing Nay: Democ­rats Suzan Del­Bene, Rick Larsen, Derek Kilmer, Prami­la Jaya­pal, Adam Smith, Den­ny Heck (WA), Suzanne Bonam­i­ci, Peter DeFazio, Earl Blu­me­nauer, Kurt Schrad­er (OR); Repub­li­cans Jaime Her­rera-Beut­ler, Dave Reichert (WA)

Not Vot­ing: Repub­li­can Dan New­house (WA)

“From the begin­ning, [Trump­cuts] has meant high­er health costs, more than 24 mil­lion hard-work­ing Amer­i­cans los­ing health cov­er­age, gut­ting key pro­tec­tions, a crush­ing age tax, and steal­ing from Medicare,” said Demo­c­ra­t­ic Leader Nan­cy Pelosi pri­or to the vote. “With each pass­ing week, Repub­li­cans have only made their bill more cost­ly and more cru­el to Amer­i­can families.”

“If Repub­li­cans pass [Trump­cuts], Amer­i­cans with pre-exist­ing con­di­tions will be pushed off their insur­ance and seg­re­gat­ed into high risk pools – where they will face soar­ing costs, worse cov­er­age, and restrict­ed care.”

“[Trump­cuts] spells heart-stop­ping pre­mi­um increas­es for Amer­i­cans with any­thing from asth­ma to can­cer.  It’s a fright­en­ing future for fam­i­lies who need afford­able, depend­able health care the most. Forc­ing a vote with­out a CBO score shows that Repub­li­cans are ter­ri­fied of the pub­lic learn­ing the full con­se­quences of their plan to push Amer­i­cans with pre-exist­ing con­di­tions into the cold.”

“But tomor­row, House Repub­li­cans are going to tat­too this moral mon­stros­i­ty to their fore­heads, and the Amer­i­can peo­ple will hold them accountable.”

Twen­ty Repub­li­cans joined the entire House Demo­c­ra­t­ic cau­cus in vot­ing no, includ­ing Dave Reichert (WA-08), who Repub­li­can lead­er­ship allowed to vote no after deter­min­ing that his vote was not need­ed to pass the bill.

“Today is a shame­ful day in Amer­i­can his­to­ry,” said Wash­ing­ton Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee, harsh­ly denounc­ing the pas­sage of the bill.

“Repub­li­cans in Con­gress have vot­ed to strip health care cov­er­age from over 700,000 Wash­ing­to­ni­ans, and to remove the guar­an­tee that all Amer­i­cans can­not be denied cov­er­age or charged more because they have a pre-exist­ing condition.”

“Their actions today threat­en the health and finan­cial secu­ri­ty of mil­lions of Amer­i­can fam­i­lies and under­mine our health insur­ance mar­kets, result­ing in like­ly pre­mi­um spikes. We have made great progress in Wash­ing­ton state’s health care sys­tem through bipar­ti­san work and sup­port, yet Con­gress is now threat­en­ing to throw it all away in favor of poor­ly-con­ceived par­ti­san legislation.”

“I am proud that eight mem­bers of Wash­ing­ton’s House del­e­ga­tion — two Repub­li­cans and all six Democ­rats — vot­ed against this bill for the harm it would cause our state. I urge the Unit­ed States Sen­ate to reject the leg­is­la­tion passed today in the House, and I urge Wash­ing­to­ni­ans to con­tin­ue mak­ing their voic­es heard as Con­gress con­sid­ers tak­ing our coun­try in the wrong direction.”

“This destruc­tive leg­is­la­tion has gone from bad to worse,” said U.S. Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Suzan Del­Bene (D‑WA-01), who vot­ed no.

“Leav­ing 24 mil­lion Amer­i­cans with­out cov­er­age and the 133 mil­lion Amer­i­cans with­out pro­tec­tions for pre-exist­ing con­di­tions isn’t just wrong — it’s inhu­mane. As I’ve heard from hun­dreds of con­stituents, nobody should face bank­rupt­cy just to afford the med­ical care they need to stay alive.”

“I hope the Sen­ate has the courage and wis­dom to stop this ill-con­ceived leg­is­la­tion before it desta­bi­lizes our health­care sys­tem. Amer­i­can fam­i­lies deserve cer­tain­ty and sta­bil­i­ty, not more chaos and confusion.”

U.S. Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Rick Larsen (D‑WA-02) agreed, call­ing the leg­is­la­tion even more heart­less than the first incar­na­tion. “If [Trump­cuts] 2.0 becomes law, 24 mil­lion Amer­i­cans will lose health cov­er­age, nec­es­sary ben­e­fits like mater­ni­ty care will become option­al, and pro­tec­tions for indi­vid­u­als liv­ing with pre-exist­ing con­di­tions will be scrapped. This is a plan to destroy America’s health­care, not fix it.”

“[Trump­cuts] 2.0 adds insult to injury because my Repub­li­can col­leagues would like you to believe that they’re going to cov­er pre-exist­ing con­di­tions and that is just not true,” said U.S. Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Prami­la Jaya­pal (D‑WA-07) in brief remarks on the House floor dur­ing the debate.  “Kids like James Kish, an eight-year old in my dis­trict who has a brain tumor and lit­er­al­ly stands to DIE if this bill passes.”

“Mr. Speak­er, hun­dreds across this coun­try are call­ing our offices and weep­ing. We should all weep that this bill is com­ing to the floor.”

“It is dif­fi­cult to imag­ine what world my Repub­li­can col­leagues are in that they could vote yes on such a bill,” Jaya­pal said fol­low­ing the vote.

“I can­not imag­ine how they will go home and face grand­moth­ers who will be kicked out of nurs­ing homes or kids with asth­ma who will no longer be able to afford inhalers. I can­not imag­ine what they will say to women in their dis­tricts who will pay more for sim­ply being women, or be barred from care if they have a C‑section – which is now con­sid­ered a pre-exist­ing condition.”

“To mil­lions across this coun­try who are ter­ri­fied of what will hap­pen, I would urge you: this is not over yet. Stay in the streets. Call your sen­a­tors and tell them to vote no. When your Mem­ber of Con­gress comes home after vot­ing yes, tell them exact­ly what you think of their cru­el vote to strip health care from millions.”

“I intend to con­tin­ue to fight every sin­gle day to pro­tect and expand health care and to hold those account­able who do not do so. We are so much bet­ter than this.”

To pre­vail, House Repub­li­can boss Paul Ryan was forced to capit­u­late to the demands of the mil­i­tant extrem­ist wing of his par­ty. The result is a piece of leg­is­la­tion that can only be called a monstrosity.

Its prospects in the Sen­ate aren’t good.

“Mem­bers have been asked to vote for a bill that is par­tic­u­lar­ly treach­er­ous, that is going nowhere in the Sen­ate,” said Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Char­lie Dent of Penn­syl­va­nia, one of the most rea­son­able Repub­li­cans in the U.S. House.

“This leg­is­la­tion will be gut­ted and we will have vot­ed for a bill that will nev­er become law. Will it cause headaches for peo­ple? Absolutely.”