WASHINGTON – Before the U.S. House of Representatives is expected to vote on Trumpcare, U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) blasted House Republicans on Thursday after multiple reports that they had agreed to amend the disastrous health care plan to make it even “meaner” and “crueler” by eliminating the essential health benefits that insurance companies are currently required to provide. Under the Affordable Care Act, insurance companies are required to provide critical services – such as emergency care, hospitalization, maternity and newborn care, and prescription drug costs – but the House Republicans’ Trumpcare plan would repeal that standard. Murphy emphasized that Trumpcare will do nothing but raise costs and reduce care to fund a big tax cut for drug and insurance companies and the rich. Click here to view video of Murphy’s remarks.

“In order to make the bill a little bit meaner and a little bit crueler, the House is going to remove from the underlying law the requirement that insurance companies cover a basic set of what are called “essential benefits. They are demanding that these essential health care benefits be stripped out of the law in order to get their votes,” said Murphy. “You could buy an insurance plan, pay your premiums and then be told that it doesn't cover your kid when he gets diagnosed with schizophrenia, that it doesn't cover your daughter when she gets in an accident and has to go to emergency room, that it doesn't cover your spouse when they get really sick. If it's not covering that list of things, what is it covering?

Murphy continued, “Trumpcare, American Health Care Act, whatever you want to call it – it has three prongs: higher costs, less care, and tax cuts for the rich.”

As a member of the U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, Murphy has continuously called on Congressional Republicans to stop their dangerous crusade to repeal the ACA and to work in a bipartisan way to improve the law. Yesterday, Murphy lambasted Senate HELP Committee Republicans for refusing to schedule hearings on Trumpcare, and how it would affect patients and families across the country.

Highlights of Murphy’s remarks is below:

“The talk today is that in order to make the bill a little bit meaner and a little bit crueler, the House is going to remove from the underlying law the requirement that insurance companies cover a basic set of what are called “essential benefits.” This change is being demanded by the very, very conservative wing of the House Republican caucus. They call themselves the Freedom Caucus. This is the group of sort of the most radical members in the House of Representatives, and they are demanding that these essential health care benefits be stripped out of the law in order to get their votes.

“So let's talk about what these essential health care benefits are. Basically the law says now if you're offering an insurance plan and you want to call yourself health insurance, then you have to actually offer to cover health care. The essential health care benefits, what every plan today just has to offer in order to call themselves insurance in this country, are: ambulatory care, outpatient care, emergency care, hospitalizations, pregnancy, maternity and newborn care, mental health and substance abuse care, prescription drugs, rehabilitation if you get injured, lab services, tests, chronic disease management, management for diabetes or heart and hypertension, and pediatric services – services for kids. That's it.

“That's the essential health care benefits. And, frankly, if you're buying a health insurance plan, wouldn't you expect that it would cover your emergency care if you were to go to an emergency room? If you're buying health care in this country, what good is it if it doesn't cover a hospitalization because you get really sick? If you're buying an insurance plan in this country, don't you think it's going to cover your kids when they need basic pediatric services? So what's happening now is something different than health care reform in the House of Representatives.

“What's happening now is really a radical rethink of what health care insurance is. If all of a sudden health insurers don't need to cover the costs of your hospitalization, don't need to cover mental illness at all, don't need to cover addiction coverage at all, then is it really insurance any longer? If it's not covering that list of things, what is it covering?

“Now, CBO has an answer for this. CBO says that if there's an insurance plan that doesn't cover this list of benefits, they won't count it as insurance. So when they are giving you the numbers of the people who will have insurance or not have insurance after this bill, the Congressional Budget Office – the nonpartisan office – says we don't really count it as insurance if it doesn't cover, you know, basic stuff like hospitalizations and out-patient services, prescription drugs, pediatric services. And so what's happening now in the House of Representatives is really a radical rethink of health care insurance.

“Health care insurance, now under this law that they are contemplating passing, wouldn't need to cover anything. You could buy an insurance plan, pay your premiums and then be told that it doesn't cover your kid when he gets diagnosed with schizophrenia, that it doesn't cover your daughter when she gets in an accident and has to go to emergency room, that it doesn't cover your spouse when they get really sick and are hospitalized for three days. What kind of coverage would that be any longer if it didn't cover that list of things?

“And let's be honest. This would be a massive transfer of costs onto individuals. The number one prong of Trumpcare is higher costs. If insurance companies don't need to cover any of these things anymore but you still have to buy it, then it's just a massive shift of costs onto individuals. Remember, Trumpcare penalizes you if you don't buy insurance. The Affordable Care Act did the same thing. Admittedly, the Affordable Care Act said if you don't buy insurance, you're going to pay a penalty. That's why the Affordable Care Act says that insurance really has to be insurance. It has to cover stuff. If we're going to require you to buy it or penalize you if you don't buy it, insurance should be insurance.

“Trumpcare penalizes you if you don't buy insurance. You pay a massive penalty. For a lot of people the penalty could be $5,000 if they don't buy insurance. Now the change they are considering in the House of representatives means that the insurance part you are forced to buy won't cover diddly. And by the way, when your insurance company doesn't cover it and you have to pick up the costs, it's going to cost you way more money.

“Everybody has probably seen a bill from a hospital. Let's say you had to go in and get a colonoscopy. You get your bill and you always sort of scratch your head because you see two numbers. You see the number thatthe hospital bills and then you see the number that your insurance company pays. Often the number the insurance company pays is one-third of that what hospital is billed. Why is that?

“Well, it’s because the insurance company is negotiating with the hospital on behalf of thousands of patients and so they get that price way, way down and the insurance company only pays a fraction of the costs that it is billed. But if you don't have insurance coverage for it, if all of a sudden it's not a benefit in your plan because the American Health Care Act told insurance companies they didn't have to cover hospitalization, then you will pay that higher price. You don't get the insurance company discount. You will pay that higher number. That's going to bankrupt people.

“I'm just going to tell you, the families in my state, when their child gets hooked on heroin, they are going to find a way to pay for that care so their child doesn't become another statistic, another one of the 900 in my state who died last year from overdoses. They will pay to get that kid care for that addiction. They will mortgage their house, sell their house. They will drain their savings account. They will sell every possession they have to make sure that child doesn't die from an overdose and that child gets the care they need. If their insurance company won't cover it, they will do everything necessary to cover it and you will have a rapid increase in the number of people whose lives are ruined because of their medical costs. Something that doesn't happen right now because the Affordable Care Act gives you real subsidies to afford care and help to buy insurance, and requires that insurance companies actually provide you with insurance.

“This is an extraordinary thing that's happening in the United States House of Representatives right now. Nobody likes this bill. Health experts think it's a joke. The American public have roundly rejected it. And it is getting meaner and crueler every day in order to round up the votes necessary to get it passed. Why?

“Because this bill is not about solving any problem in the health care system. It doesn't solve a single problem. Again, except for this narrow group of younger, healthier affluent people who will get a little bit less – whose premiums will be a little bit less – everybody else is worse off. It only solves one problem. It is a political problem. It is a promise that Republicans made to repeal the Affordable Care Act. But they didn't spend any time thinking about how to actually do it, so they're stuck now with an awful bill that nobody likes, that doesn't solve a single problem, that's getting meaner and meaner every single day.

“It was bad enough, and now this bill is, frankly, getting into some really radical territory talking about totally rethinking insurance, letting insurance companies offer you a product that covers nothing and then requiring you to buy it. Think about that. We're going to require you to buy insurance. The insurance isn't going to cover anything. Trumpcare, American Health Care Act, whatever you want to call it – it has three prongs: higher costs, less care, and tax cuts for the rich.”

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