Kennedy: GOP health care effort is ‘just a bad bill’

Q: Tell us what conversations you’re having with lawmakers in D.C. about this Graham-Cassidy bill.

A: There’s huge agreement from across our country from anyone associated with the health care industry, that this devastates health care. From hospitals, from insurance companies, from doctors, from patient groups, nobody likes this bill. There’s been a letter circulated by all 50 states. The Medicaid directors from all 50 states, bipartisan, have called on Congress to reject this bill. The major players in health care at-large have called on Congress to reject this bill. Bipartisan coalitions in the Senate and the House have called on people to reject this bill. Our governor, Republican Gov. Charlie Baker ... has called on Congress to reject this bill. This isn’t a partisan thing. This is just a bad bill.

Q: Have you talked to your Republican colleagues in Congress about this bill?

A: We talked already about how bad the bill is, and what it could mean for Massachusetts, and the loss of eight or nine billion (dollars in federal health care funding) over the next 10 years. When you start looking at the impact on community health centers, on rural hospitals, these are health care institutions that can’t lose an additional five, seven, 10 million (dollars) a year. They’re not going to stay afloat. You’re looking at the potential of drastic impacts for access to care, particularly in rural communities.

Q: What are some of the problems that you see with this bill?

A: It targets Democratic states that have made investments in Medicaid, like Massachusetts, California, New York and Maryland, who you will note, do not have between them a single Republican senator. This bill in the Senate targets those states, takes money out of those states, to give it to 16 other states. Fifteen of those states are states that Donald Trump won in the presidential election. These are states that are dominated by Republican senators. They’re taking money from states that made an investment in health care, taking and giving it to states that didn’t. Think about what that means: OK, we are saying that we are willing, as a country, to provide the health care dollars and infrastructure to increase access to care for a child with cancer in Texas, but only if we take money away from Massachusetts to do so. We’re only going to increase care to that child, if we take it away from another child in another state. There’s no reason why we have to structure health care this way ... other than a vision from Republican senators that has said, ‘We think we’re giving Massachusetts too much money.’