Independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders framed the proposed cuts to Medicaid in the House Republicans' reconciliation bill as a "death sentence" for "thousands and thousands" of low-income Americans.
Sanders made the comments in an interview with MSNBC on Wednesday night.
The Congressional Budget Office estimated that under the "one big, beautiful bill" put forth by House Republicans earlier this week, 10.3 million people would lose coverage under Medicaid, and 7.6 million would be uninsured by 2034.
"And then, on top of that, what the Republicans are proposing is a $35 co-payment for many Medicaid recipients," Sanders said.
"If you are making $16,000 a year, you know what? You can't afford that 35 bucks, you are not gonna go to the doctor. One of the outrageous dysfunctionalities of our current healthcare system is we lose some 70,000 people a year, die, because they don't get to a doctor on time," he added.
"When you throw 13 million people off of health insurance, when you raise co-payments for poor people, it is a death sentence. Thousands and thousands of low-income and working people will die because they simply will not be able to get into a doctor's office when they need it," Sanders told the outlet.
The future of the bill, which will fund President Donald Trump's domestic policy agenda, would have an uncertain fate in the Senate, where two Republican senators, Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., and Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., have already said they won't support it without more spending cuts and offsets.
A third, Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., earlier this week assailed the Republican Party's "Wall Street wing" for promoting cuts to Medicaid.
"This wing of the party wants Republicans to build our big, beautiful bill around slashing health insurance for the working poor," Hawley wrote in a column for The New York Times. "But that argument is both morally wrong and politically suicidal."
Mark Swanson ✉
Mark Swanson, a Newsmax writer and editor, has nearly three decades of experience covering news, culture and politics.
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