March 24th, 2017 by WCBC Radio
Today Speaker Paul Ryan pulled the American Health Care Act, Republican legislation to repeal the Affordable Care Act, from the floor after it was clear that it did not have the votes to pass the House. According to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, the legislation would have meant that the number of Americans without insurance would have increased by 24 million.
Congressman John K. Delaney (MD-6) strongly opposes the American Health Care Act and releases the following statement:
“I stand with my constituents in opposition to the American Health Care Act. Because the American people spoke up and made their voices heard we were able to defeat this effort to pass this bill.
“This legislation to repeal the Affordable Care Act is one of the cruelest and most poorly-constructed policy proposals I have ever seen. This bill will mean millions of people lose their health care coverage outright. For many other Americans, costs will increase and the quality of coverage options will decrease. Somehow, over the last week, this bill got even worse, as essential health benefits were taken out and as the President and hardliners scrambled to jam through legislation that will impact the lives of nearly every American with no oversight, no transparency and no deliberation.
“I make it a point of principle to take every bill we see in this House in good faith, whether it comes from a Republican or a Democrat and give it a fair and impartial analysis. Sadly, from the very beginning it was clear that this was a devastating bill for millions of people, designed to quickly meet a partisan campaign agenda, not actually help the country or reform our health care system in a thoughtful way. Like all pieces of legislation, the Affordable Care Act isn’t perfect and we should work together diligently to fix it, because for too many people quality and affordable health care is still out of reach.”
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