The newest push to do something, anything, about the United States' health care problem is being worked on in the Senate. Although the CBO has not scored the rererewrite, reliable sources report that the proposals being looked at push more people out of access on multiple levels. Since so many conservative politicians believe that those who need health care but cannot pay for insurance are blood-sucking wastrels, any money for Medicaid is on the chopping block. Some of this would happen upon passage of the bill, but the larger portion of the money would be eliminated in approximately ten years. Because of the way Medicaid rules are written, a huge percentage of those dollars are spent on the elderly, to keep them in long term care, or on the very young, to provide them with any care at all.
Many other vulnerable populations are at risk as well. Those with pre-existing conditions will have access to insurance but will not be protected from prohibitively expensive bills for that insurance. Having read the commentary from my own state's politicians, I know that they believe that if anyone has a pre-existing condition, it is because they deserve it due to some combination of God's wrath and poor choices. Of course the fact that this is specious reasoning eludes them entirely.
Then, in the traditional knee jerk blow we expect from the right wing, funding for Planned Parenthood would be completely eliminated. This despite several lawsuits that found that removing access to medical care from poor populations is illegal. Planned Parenthood is often the only provider for poor women in many places in the United States and is by no means only an abortion provider, but then the right wing apparently believes women should be punished for having sex at all.
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