Will our senators save health care for Arizonans?

It’s still early in the replacement game for the Affordable Care Act, but not too soon to ask Sens. John McCain and Jeff Flake if they’re willing to strip 400,000 Arizona citizens of their health insurance. That’s what would happen if the Republican plan to scrap “Obamacare” eliminates the Medicaid expansion.

That expansion was fought for by then-Gov. Jan Brewer, working with both Democrats and Republicans.

Arizona is one of 31 states that expanded Medicaid.

It makes sense, economically, because without the expansion, most of those people wouldn’t be able to afford care, meaning by the time they got sick, their illnesses are advanced, increasing the cost for treating them. This is a price hospitals absorb (though of course those costs get passed on to the rest of us.)

Of Arizona’s program, Brewer told the Associated Press, “I don’t know how you could deliver that population any more services better, more cheaply, than what we’ve already done here.”

Four Republican U.S. senators from states that, like Arizona, expanded Medicaid, sent a letter to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell saying in part, “We will not support a plan that does not include stability for Medicaid expansion populations or flexibility for states.”

None of those senators were McCain or Flake. Instead, they were Republican Sens. Rob Portman (Ohio), Shelley Moore Capito (West Virginia), Cory Gardner (Colorado), and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska). Our guys? Nowhere to be seen. (The same is true of most of Arizona’s members of the House of Representatives.)

The Republican plan to replace Obamacare is good for the young and healthy and bad for the elderly and the poor. That would include many of those receiving care under Arizona’s Medicaid expansion.

The American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) also has come out against the legislation, saying it’s harmful to senior citizens.

Joyce A. Rogers, a senior vice president at AARP, said, “This bill would weaken Medicare’s fiscal sustainability, dramatically increase health-care costs for Americans aged 50-64 and put at risk the health care of millions of children and adults with disabilities, and poor seniors who depend on the Medicaid program for long-term services and supports and other benefits.”

The Goldwater Institute (where Flake used to work) has been leading the charge to have Arizona’s Medicaid expansion declared unconstitutional. That’s an easy position to take when you have money and options. Like Flake. Like McCain. Like the fancy attorneys at the Goldwater Institute.

Unlike at least 400,000 of our lessfortunate brothers and sisters.

The senators can help them to maintain their health care now. Or the rest of us can pay the price later.