The healthcare industry is ready to plead its case against rolling back the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion as Trumpcare heads to the U.S. Senate.
Many have long thought any effort to repeal and replace the ACA would have the easiest time passing in the U.S. House of Representatives, which finally did so by just four votes in the form of the American Health Care Act, also known as Trumpcare. But Republicans in the U.S. Senate have more favorable reviews of the ACA’s Medicaid expansion, which is may doom the AHCA in the upper legislative chamber.
“The Republican-controlled Senate will be the voice of reason and draft a version that will keep the Medicaid expansion and save the lives of the millions that stand to lose coverage under the House plan,” said Jerry Vitti, CEO of Healthcare Financial, a Boston-based firm that helps connect low-income beneficiaries to disability benefits.
There are 31 states that opted to expand Medicaid coverage under the Affordable Care Act and most of them have influential Republican Senators insurers and providers see as unlikely to end benefits for poor Americans. “ Twenty Republican senators come from states that expanded Medicaid , and 16 Medicaid expansion states have Republican governors,” Centene CEO Michael Neidorff told analysts on the company’s first quarter’s earnings call, which was a week before the House voted to approve the AHCA.
Centene has been among the major health insurers that have benefitted from administering benefits for states that expanded Medicaid. If House Speaker Paul Ryan and the other 216 House members who voted for Trumpcare get their way, those Medicaid benefits would go away for millions of Americans.