Elizabeth Warren for Senate

They might have the votes to repeal health care

September 18, 2017 | By Elizabeth Warren

The Republicans want you to believe that their plan to repeal the Affordable Care Act is dead. They want to slip in below the radar and take one more run at repealing health care coverage for millions of Americans.

Here’s the reason they are moving now: Senate Republicans have until September 30th to repeal the Affordable Care Act with only 50 votes.

And here’s the scary fact: They just might have the votes to do it.

The Cassidy-Graham bill that the Republicans pulled out of the trash is their worst “health care” bill yet.

It guts funding for Medicaid – so if you need a nursing home or your baby is born with complex medical needs, you’re on your own.

It rolls back protections for people with pre-existing conditions – so if you have a heart attack or get a cancer diagnosis, too bad.

And it completely eliminates help for families to buy health insurance – so if you can’t afford health insurance, good luck out there.

Make no mistake: This Cassidy-Graham “health care” bill is Trumpcare on steroids – and millions of Americans will lose their health care if the Republicans pass this piece of garbage in the next 11 days.

Remember everything you did to stop the Republicans from repealing the Affordable Care Act seven weeks ago? We need you to do it again.

Share your story again about why the Affordable Care Act or Medicaid matters to you or someone you love. Email it to your friends and family. Post it on Facebook or Twitter. Take a photo or record a video on your phone.

Our Senate Democrats are still united against this bill – but if you have family or friends who live in a state with a Republican senator, make sure they know what’s happening to health care this week. Call, text, email, message – check in and then spread the word.

Join a group. If you belong to an organization that has been fighting to save the Affordable Care Act, keep your eyes peeled. If you don’t belong to a group, find one. Organizations will be holding events, making calls, sharing content, and keeping people informed about what’s going on. Two voices are more than twice as powerful as one. Ten voices are more than ten times as powerful. And thousands – even millions – of voices working together can stop this ugly bill. Don’t delete all those emails.

Let your friends know that you're a part of this fight. Update your Facebook profile picture to add a "#ProtectOurCare" frame – the official hashtag of people and organizations fighting to save the Affordable Care Act.Check out mine below!

I know we thought this was over. I know we worked hard and thought Republicans had gotten the message. But they are giving it one more try, and that means we’ve got to jump back in the fight. Health care for millions of Americans hangs in the balance, so we need to get out there and fight one more time.

Let’s kill this Republican “health care” bill once and for all.

Thanks for being a part of this,

Elizabeth

I'm co-sponsoring Bernie's Medicare for All bill

September 7, 2017 | By Elizabeth Warren

When the Republicans tried to repeal the Affordable Care Act and gut Medicaid, I heard from parents all across Massachusetts who were terrified about what it would mean for their children.

One message kept hitting home: If the government hadn’t been there to help, these hard-working moms and dads would have been forced to pick between the health of their child and financial ruin. Their families would have been destroyed.

There is something fundamentally wrong when one of the richest and most powerful countries on the planet can’t make sure that a person can afford to see a doctor when they’re sick. This isn’t any way to live.

I believe it’s time to take a step back and ask: what is the best way to deliver high quality, low cost health care to all Americans? Everything should be on the table – and that’s why I’m co-sponsoring Bernie Sanders’ Medicare for All bill that will be introduced later this month.

Health care is a basic human right – and it’s time to fight for it. Please join me in signing on as a citizen co-sponsor of Medicare for All.

My own family plunged deep into debt when my daddy had a heart attack. My parents paid on those bills for years. Years later, as a bankruptcy law professor, I studied why working families were going broke. Through interviews and court documents, my research partners and I showed that most people who file for bankruptcy looked a lot like my family.

The overwhelming majority had once been solidly middle class – and about half had filed for bankruptcy in the aftermath of a serious medical problem. And here was the kicker: about three-quarters of them had health insurance – but it just wasn’t enough. Medical bankruptcy was crushing millions of American families.

The Affordable Care Act changed everything – and President Obama deserves tremendous credit. Consider what health care reforms have accomplished:

Insurance companies are barred from denying people with preexisting conditions
The caps on insurance coverage are gone so help doesn’t run out after a few chemo treatments or a long hospital stay
Young people can stay on their parents' insurance until age 26
Small business get tax breaks for providing health care
Insurance companies can no longer discriminate against women

We owe a huge debt to President Obama. Because of the Affordable Care Act, health care coverage is better – more people can get the treatment they need and families are less vulnerable to the financial fallout from a serious illness or accident. Senate Democrats will keep doing everything we can to stop Donald Trump, Mitch McConnell and the Republicans from rolling back these gains. They are too important for all of us.

But there’s so much more we could do right now to bring down the costs of quality health care for every American. We could start by ending health insurance company price gouging – ending high deductibles, surprise bills, and endless fights with insurance companies over coverage for critical medical procedures or out-of-pocket costs. We could also cut the cost of prescription drugs by importing drugs from Canada, where the same prescription can sometimes cost far less than in the US. Bipartisan improvements are possible – in fact, just a few weeks ago, President Trump signed my bill with Republican Chuck Grassley to make hearing aids more affordable by allowing certain hearing aids to be sold over the counter.

Medicare for All is one way that we can give every single person in the country access to high quality health care. Everyone is covered. Nobody goes broke paying a medical bill. Families don’t have to bear the costs of heartbreaking medical disasters on their own.

The American people have made it clear that they believe health care is a basic human right – but it will be a tough fight. The giant insurance and drug companies will send out their army of lobbyists to fight our Medicare for All bill every step of the way. Sign up now to join our fight and become a citizen co-sponsor of Medicare for All and fight back.

Elizabeth Warren For Senate

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They might have the votes to repeal health care

I'm co-sponsoring Bernie's Medicare for All bill