The GOP budget legislation currently before the U.S. Senate would strip health coverage from 19 Americans for every millionaire household it gives a tax break, according to a report that Sen. Bernie Sanders released Wednesday as he worked to highlight and build public opposition to President Donald Trump and the Republican Party's draconian assault on the nation's social safety net.
The report integrates alarming testimony from healthcare providers who warn that the Republican legislation would have devastating impacts on their patients and the broader U.S. healthcare system—stripping insurance from millions, raising costs, and shuttering rural hospitals.
"If Medicaid is cut, my patients will die," Louisiana-based doctor Helen Pope told Sanders' team. "I realize I am being dramatic. It is a dramatic situation. They are humans who are doing their best. Please don't allow them to suffer more."
Farhan Malik, a pediatric critical care specialist based in Florida, echoed that warning, saying that "children will die as a result of these cuts."
"Hospitals will cut back on ICU doctors, doctors will leave because of salary cuts, critical ancillary services will be reduced, more medical students will avoid going into pediatric residencies," said Malik.
The report comes as Republican lawmakers continue to debate just how far they want to go with their proposed cuts to Medicaid, which—under both the House and Senate versions of their legislation—would be the largest in U.S. history.
Last week, Senate Republicans called for even more aggressive cuts than those approved by the House GOP, which voted in May for a plan that would kick roughly 11 million Americans off their health insurance—or 16 million when accounting for the party's refusal to extend Affordable Care Act tax credits that are set to expire at the end of the year.
Meanwhile, an estimated 800,000 millionaire households would receive a tax cut under the Republican legislation.
"Children will die as a result of these cuts." —Farhan Malik, Florida-based pediatric critical care specialist
Sanders (I-Vt.), the ranking member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, has focused closely on the legislation's potentially catastrophic healthcare impacts. Earlier this month, a Sanders-commissioned report estimated that around 51,000 additional Americans would die unnecessarily each year if the Republican budget reconciliation bill becomes law.
In a statement on Wednesday, Sanders said his new report "makes it abundantly clear that the reconciliation bill that Republicans are attempting to ram through the Senate this week would be a death sentence for working-class and low-income Americans throughout the country."
"Not only would this disastrous and deeply immoral bill throw 16 million people off of their healthcare and lead to over 50,000 unnecessary deaths every year, it would create a national healthcare emergency in America," said Sanders. "It would devastate rural hospitals, community health centers, and nursing homes throughout our country and cause a massive spike in uninsured rates in red states and blue states alike."
"That's not Bernie Sanders talking," the senator added. "That is precisely what doctors, healthcare providers, and hospitals have told us."
Sanders' new report was accompanied by a breakdown of how much the uninsured rate would rise over the next decade if the House-passed reconciliation bill becomes law. At least 16 states would see their uninsured rates jump by more than 70% under the Republican bill.
"We cannot allow Republicans to take healthcare away from 16 million Americans in order to pay for more tax breaks to billionaires," Sanders said Wednesday. "As the ranking member of the HELP Committee, I will do everything that I can to see that it is defeated. Healthcare must be a human right for all, not a privilege for the wealthy few."
