INDIANAPOLIS—Indiana Democratic Party Chairman John Zody released the following statement on the latest CBO score on the Republican health care overhaul, which claims the bill will cost 23 million Americans their coverage in the next 10 years:

“Now we know why every Republican in Indiana’s House delegation, including Congressman Messer and Congressman Rokita, shoved this bill through the House before the final CBO score came out. Tweaks around the edges can’t change the fact that tens of millions of Americans would still be stripped of their health care if this Republican proposal became law, all to finance another tax cut for the wealthiest Americans.

“The numbers in today’s score are so terrifying because the underlying framework of this bill—shoved through by Republicans like Congressman Messer and Congressman Rokita to appease their base—is so terrifying. The Republican proposal would cut roughly $850 billion from Medicaid over ten years, gutting HIP 2.0 and vital programs that fund seniors’ beds in nursing homes, help children with disabilities, and combat the scourge of opioid abuse. It amounts to an age tax that that would cause working-class seniors’ healthcare premiums to skyrocket. And as it stands, it would once again allow insurers to discriminate against hundreds of millions of more Americans simply because they were unfortunate enough to have a pre-existing condition.

“That’s a proposal that was heartless even before we knew its impact. Now that we’ve seen the score, it looks simply insane.”

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