It's more than likely that a reworked version of the bill appeasing the Senate Republicans currently opposed to it could appear as soon as Friday. With this possibility, activists and elected officials held events across Florida on Wednesday morning in an effort to pressure the state's own Republican Senator, Marco Rubio, to reject the bill, which was estimated to cost 22 million Americans their health insurance coverage.
Among the cities where such events took place was Tampa, where the For Florida's Future SuperPac worked in conjunction with VoteVets.Org, Florida Alliance of Planned Parenthood Affiliates, Florida Voices for Health, Organize Florida and Mi Familia Vota.
“This repeal plan will be responsible for less coverage for women and people with pre-existing conditions, impose an unfair age tax on older Floridians and cripple the ability of Medicare to provide full care to veterans, people with disabilities, low income [individuals], seniors and others,” said Michelle Prieto, the Tampa coordinator of Mi Familia Vota. “This is not a healthcare bill at all. It's a $765 billion tax break for corporations, and would slash coverage for 22 million Americans. The delay of this vote is a testament to all of our work and organizing as progressives, but it's also a testament to how bad this bill really is.”
With such a broad coalition united in opposition to the health care bill, there was a broad perspective on the damage the bill could do, from rolling back the progress made in fighting the HIV/AIDS epidemic to cutting of nearly 45,000 Veterans off of Medicaid to totally defunding women's access to health care procedures through the Republican crusade against Planned Parenthood.
“Women's care, which Planned Parenthood provides for a lot of the women of this country, is not a political issue,” said Vivian Olivia Warren, a volunteer for the Florida Alliance of Planned Parenthood. “It provides vital preventive healthcare for women. One in five women of this country go to Planned Parenthood for their breast cancer screening, oncological exams, et cetera. Last year 300,000 women had breast cancer screenings and there were 70,000 cancers detected at little or no cost to them. Unintended pregnancies are at it's lowest in the last two decades. Abortions, one of this administration's favorite topics when it comes to defunding Planned Parenthood, is at it's lowest since Roe v. Wade. … Senator Rubio, we will not take this quietly. I have been to you office on Kennedy Boulevard, which is now closed due to you ignoring your constituency here in Hillsborough County. We take full credit for you having to close it. You have two daughters that you should be thinking about. Your gravy train will not last forever Marco. Ask [former] congressman David Jolly.”
Also in attendance was State Representative Sean Shaw, who took the opportunity to emphasize the threat the bill made to jobs in Florida, estimating that 181,000 workers in the healthcare field could be at risk.
“You've heard all these people tell you how bad the bill is, and there is no corresponding press conference to tell you how good it is,” said Shaw. “No one can sit in front of you and have a press conference telling you why this bill is good or necessary other than to say that when they ran as a Republican they vowed to repeal Obamacare. They would rather repeal Obamacare with crap, than leave it as it is doing good for this country and for Florida. They would rather leave people on deaths door, they would rather cost jobs in Florida, they would rather have all these things happen than to admit we made progress under Obamacare and if our politics has reached that point, we are in a sad state of affairs.”
While Rubio has maintained that he was undecided on the Senate Health Bill, he did take to Twitter Wednesday morning to criticize the media's coverage of the bill, given that so many critics have said it could lead to many deaths if they lose their coverage.
This article appears in Jun 29 – Jul 7, 2017.