Press Releases

Congresswoman Suzan DelBene (WA-01) applauded the failure of the Republicans’ healthcare bill, which never lived up to the President’s promise that everyone would have health insurance coverage. In fact, 24 million people would have lost their healthcare if the bill became law.

“If Republicans crafted legislation that lived up to the promise of ‘insurance for everybody’ at lower cost, they would have broad support for their efforts. But it’s clear this bill left middle-class families, seniors, women and people with disabilities far worse off. Allowing 24 million Americans to go uncovered is just wrong,” DelBene said. “Since coming to Congress, I have worked tirelessly to find commonsense fixes to our nation’s healthcare laws. We should build upon the reforms we’ve already made to expand coverage and reduce costs — this bill did none of that. Instead, most Americans would have ended up paying more for less, while millions more would find coverage completely out of reach. I’m relieved we were able to stop this dangerous legislation before it completely destabilized our nation’s healthcare system.”

DelBene spoke out against the bill earlier Friday. Video can be found HERE.

According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, the Republican bill would have caused 14 million Americans to lose health coverage within one year, and 24 million in the next decade —  including 7 million workers who would lose employer-sponsored health benefits. It also gutted insurance coverage for essential health benefits like ER visits and prescription drugs, hikes insurance premiums by 20 percent and cut tax assistance for middle-class families in half.

In addition, the Republican bill would have given a $7 million tax break to each of the 400 wealthiest American households, slashed benefits and protections for seniors, robbed $75 billion from Medicare, defunded Planned Parenthood and cut funding for Medicaid by more than $880 billion. That would have forced states to assume massive costs, or else begin rationing healthcare for 68 million children, pregnant women, seniors and people with disabilities — including 600,000 in Washington state.

DelBene serves on the House Ways and Means Committee and the Budget Committee, where she offered amendments on Medicare, Planned Parenthood and Medicaid to try and improve the legislation. Unfortunately, Republicans blocked all those efforts.

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