The American Medical Association, the largest association of doctors in the country, warned House lawmakers on Wednesday that the GOP’s Obamacare replacement plan introduced earlier this week is “critically flawed” and puts millions of Americans at risk of losing their coverage.
The association’s president, Andrew Gurman, says his group’s highest priority is to ensure the largest number of people are guaranteed health coverage and complained it is impossible with the Republican plan — the American Health Care Act — to determine how many people would get or lose coverage compared to former President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act.
“As drafted, the AHCA would result in millions of Americans losing coverage and benefits. By replacing income-based premium subsidies with age-based tax credits, the AHCA will also make coverage more expensive — if not out of reach — for poor and sick Americans. For these reasons, the AMA cannot support the AHCA as it is currently written,” Gurman said.
Some conservatives have also expressed concerns with the ACHA’s refundable tax credits, notably members of the House Freedom Caucus. Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul also slammed the tax credits, calling the plan “Obamacare lite.”
In a letter dated Tuesday to the leaders of the Ways and Means Committee and Energy and Commerce Committee, the AMA outlined other concerns it has with the plan, including the proposed rollback of Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act.
“Medicaid expansion has proven highly successful in providing coverage for lower income individuals,” the group says in the letter. “Beyond the expansion, the underlying structure of Medicaid financing ensures that states are able to react to economically driven changes in enrollment and increased health care needs driven by external factors.”
The AMA also says it cannot support a provision in the bill that would defund Planned Parenthood along with “provisions that repeal the Prevention and Public Health Fund or that eliminate the ability of patients to receive their care from qualified providers of their choice.”
