Democrats cite harm to NJ from Republican healthcare bill
As Republicans in Congress hurtle toward a vote this week on their plan to replace the Affordable Care Act, New Jersey's senior senator and other Democrats asked Tuesday why Governor Chris Christie hasn't used his access to President Trump to defend New Jersey's interests, particularly because hundreds of thousands of residents are projected to lose coverage under the Republican plan.
"The governor played such a role in the Trump campaign, he should pick up that cell phone number he has and say this doesn't work for New Jersey," said U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez. "I'd be using my political capital" to seek changes that avoid the loss of billions of dollars to the state.
The governor said earlier this year that he favored the Republican-proposed changes to Medicaid, the joint federal-state insurance program for the poor. They would switch Medicaid from an open-ended entitlement program to a fixed annual federal grant to the states. Christie also has made treatment for those addicted to opioids and narcotics the centerpiece of his last year in office, and wants to expand hospital coverage and other options for substance-abuse treatment.
Those two goals are incompatible, said Democratic speakers during a conference call about the New Jersey impact of the Republican health-care proposals.
"The bottom line is, if you're going to get less money from the federal government... what we know happens is that behavioral health and drug treatment – those are the first things to go," said U.S. Rep. Frank Pallone Jr., of the 6th District, Middlesex and Monmouth counties.
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"The state is in a budget crisis," he said, and won't be able to make up the loss of an estimated $4.2 billion if Medicaid matching funds are rolled back. Either services will be cut or the number of people eligible will be cut, he said.
Christie "thanks Senator Menendez for his kind suggestion but assures him his encouragement is unnecessary," his spokesman, Brian Murray, said. The governor "communicates with the President and members of the Administration on this and other issues on a regular basis."
Menendez, Pallone and state Sen. Joseph Vitale, who chairs the Senate Health Committee, spoke during the release of a report that said 476,000 New Jersey residents would lose health coverage in the next three years if Republican proposals are enacted. Meanwhile, "250 New Jersey millionaires would see their federal taxes reduced by an average of $57,000 a year" as a result to tax cuts contained in the bill, according to the report by New Jersey Policy Perspective, a liberal Trenton thinktank that advocated for the Affordable Care Act.
Christie called it a "ridiculous report" at his own news conference, saying the group is "amongst the most useless partisans in the state." He said he was "not going to respond substantively to what they’ve got to say, because they're completely full of it."
The report came on the same day that the head of the New Jersey Hospital Association published an "Open Letter to the New Jersey Congressional Delegation" saying it was "time to show courage on health care."
"This is not the right bill for a better health care system," wrote Betsy Ryan, the association's CEO. "Please vote 'no' this Thursday on the American Health Care Act." Hospitals will be hurt by increasing demand for charity care as more people lose insurance, she said.
Activists who oppose the replacement of the healthcare law, called an emergency rally at the Statehouse for Thursday, the day of the expected House vote. They said would continue their weekly Wednesday evening vigils outside the offices of New Jersey's five Republican Congressmen.
One of those representatives, Tom MacArthur of the 3rd district, said the amendments to the bill added on Monday had persuaded him to support it.
"We have 48 hours to change that and we'll be working hard," said Maura Collinsgru, health care advocate for New Jersey Citizen Action.
