Health Care Bill Blasted By Shaker Heights Superintendent

SHAKER HEIGHTS, OH — Shaker Heights Superintendent Gregory Hutchings is lambasting the Obamacare replacement healthcare bill under consideration in the U.S. Senate. The bill would leave 22 million people without health insurance by 2026, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

“Health care coverage should be affordable, attainable and adequate to meet the needs of our young people and their families. Neither the House-proposed American Health Care Act nor the Senate-proposed Better Care Reconciliation Act achieve this,” says Hutchings in a statement. “Both bills, in their current forms, propose sweeping cuts to Medicaid which endanger coverage for the country’s most vulnerable young people and the quality of services school districts can provide to Medicaid-eligible students.”

Hutchings joins his criticism with the Save Medicaid in the Schools Coalition, which includes 60 education organizations, including the School Superintendents Association. Both groups previously told Congressional leaders the House bill would cause a reduction in health services offered through schools to Medicaid-eligible students, cuts to general education, higher local taxes, job loss for staff performing Medicaid-eligible services, fewer critical supplies for children with disabilities, and more.

“The projected loss of $880 billion in federal Medicaid dollars under the House bill and the Senate’s proposal to reduce Medicaid to a mere shell of itself is unconscionable,” Hutchings says. “We must use our collective voices to work together and ensure our country meets the health care and educational needs of all children and families.”

Patch's Cody Fenwick previously reported that, like the House plan, the Senate bill's cuts and alterations are built around paying for steep tax cuts of about $1 trillion for select businesses and the wealthiest 2 percent of the country's individuals. That lost tax money is paid for in both GOP versions of the bill by slashing subsidies to help poor, middle-class and older Americans pay for insurance costs. Both bills also cut Medicaid spending by hundreds of billions of dollars.

Because much of the billion Medicaid cuts in the Senate bill would take place after 2026, which is where CBO cuts of its projection, many more people will be left uninsured under the new legislation beyond that point. Medicaid insures one in five Americans, most of them poor, middle-class, disabled or elderly.

“Medicaid is critical to families and communities, including Shaker Heights,” says Hutchings. “If federal funding is drastically reduced, other District programs and initiatives may suffer as we search for ways to fund and service the needs of our Medicaid-eligible students.”

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