Seniors urged to fight for health insurance

Seniors at Bella Vista were told Wednesday to make their concerns known to Congress.

NEW HAVEN » Seniors at Bella Vista were told Wednesday to make their concerns known to Congress if they don’t want to see millions of Americans go without insurance coverage, Medicare destabilized and huge cuts administered to Medicaid as health care changes advance in Washington.

U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., and U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-3, came to speak against the American Health Care Act passed by the Republican majority in the House on May 4, which they both characterized as “inhumane.”

Murphy said there will be almost $1 trillion in cuts to Medicaid which covers 768,000 people in the Connecticut, including one of five people on Medicare.

Some 92,125 individuals in the state, or two-thirds of nursing home residents and one-half of people on disability, also use Medicaid funds, according to the Center for Medicare Advocacy.

The bill will see 23 million more Americans uninsured by 2026, according to an analysis by the Congressional Budget Office.

It also would give the states permission to seek waivers to allow insurance companies to charge higher premiums for preexisting conditions, if a person’s coverage lapsed for more than 63 days.

The Republican House bill reduces Medicare financial solvency by about three years and jeopardizes its ability to pay for services, according to the acting administrator for Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

Currently, Medicaid, as an entitlement, fluctuates based on state needs and costs, but the replacement for the current Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, would cap Medicaid funds regardless of need, such as an increasing aging population.

The U.S. Senate has a committee of 13 men meeting behind closed doors putting together its version of health care.

“It is really extraordinary how secretive they have been. Whatever you think of the Affordable Care Act, it was debated in public. There were committee votes. One-hundred and thirty Republican amendments were adopted in the Senate Health Committee . ... None of that is happening this time,” Murphy said.

He said for those who have worked on health care for years, the secrecy is “morally objectionable.”

Murphy said it also seems “intentional” that the Republicans have not put any women on the committee.

“The fact of the matter is the majority of people on Medicaid are women. All the people who wrote the House bill are men. All the people who are writing the Senate bill are men. It doesn’t seem like a coincidence that most of the cuts in the health care bill target women,” he said.

Both DeLauro and Murphy, who arrived separately at the Bella Vista housing project in Fair Haven Heights, were greeted by cheers from the residents.

DeLauro said the health care changes will benefit some 400 American families with the highest income, with tax cuts averaging $7 million each a year. She said this is possible because of the $800 million to $900 million in Medicaid cuts. Those cuts exceed $1 trillion when President Donald Trump’s proposed Medicaid budget cuts are factored in.

Both DeLauro and Murphy said the Affordable Care Act needs fixes, not elimination.

“So let’s strengthen the Affordable Care Act. Prices are high. Premiums and deductibles are high. We can bring down the cost of prescription drugs. We can provide a public option. All those things we need to do,” DeLauro said to cheers from the crowd of seniors living at the subsidized housing complex.

“No one chooses to get ill,” DeLauro said. She said this bill would allow insurance companies to put annual and lifetime limits on coverage, which means at some point, decisions will be made as to who lives and who dies.

Ellen Andrews, executive director of the Connecticut Health Policy Project, said the American Health Care Act does nothing to bring down costs. “It just shifts costs onto you. It makes it less expensive for the federal government, but it doesn’t do anything for anybody in this room,” she said.

She said when people don’t have insurance they don’t take advantage of preventative screening or catch a disease early enough for treatment before it evolves into a much more costly ailment.

One resident said she was grateful for the coverage she now has.

Alice Selbe, a resident of Bella Vista, said she was diagnosed with cancer this year.

“I know if I didn’t have insurance, I wouldn’t be here today,” she said.

Andrews said Medicaid will be slashed by $1 billion a year every year and the state is already $5 billion in the hole to start with.

“That just doesn’t mean cuts to health care. It is going to mean cuts to schools, cuts to transportation, to libraries, to parks, to Meals On Wheels . ... The state just cannot absorb those kinds of cuts,” Andrews said.

She said under the House bill, seniors over 60 will see a 55 percent decrease in their subsidies under Obamacare “if they try to buy insurance.” She said another problem will be whether it will cover their medical problems.

A more basic issue, however, is whether the state’s Access Health CT exchange will have any participating insurers by the end of the year, leaving 73,000 people without their subsidies.

Both Anthem and ConnectiCare have asked for double-digit premium increases and may leave if they don’t get them. A public hearing on the increases is set for June 14 before the Connecticut Insurance Department.