The following article by Jonathan D. Salant was posted on the NJ.com website May 12, 2016:
WASHINGTON — Those who attended Rep. Tom MacArthur’s five-hour town hall meeting Wednesday evening hit him with complaints and criticism over the House Republican legislation that repealed and replaced the Affordable Care Act with a bill that could leave 24 million more Americans without coverage.
Turns out, they weren’t alone.
A Quinnipiac University poll taken after the House Republicans passed their American Health Care Act and released Thursday said that a majority of U.S. voters, 56 percent, opposed the measure. That’s the same percentage who rejected the initial legislation, which GOP leaders pulled from the House floor in March due to lack of support.
Just over 1 in 5 voters, 21 percent, supported the GOP bill, a slight increase over the 17 percent who backed the original measure in a March Quinnipiac poll.
“The grim diagnosis from voters: Health care will cost more and deliver less,” said Tim Malloy, assistant director of the Quinnipiac poll.
That’s what MacArthur’s constituents told him.
“This was a horrible bill from a horrible group of people,” said Geoff Ginter, a certified medical assistant from Pine Beach whose wife Colette had cancer. “If you wanted something better, you could have made the ACA better.”
MacArthur defended his efforts on behalf of the Republican health care legislation.
“This is about doing the best we can do to help needy people, to help people who are being priced out of the market,” he told reporters after the town hall.
In the Quinnipiac poll, three-quarters of respondents said it was a bad idea to give states the ability to allow insurers to raise premiums for those with pre-existing conditions such as cancer or diabetes. Just 21 percent said it was a good idea.
That was part of the amendment that MacArthur (R-3rd Dist.) authored to break a stalemate and get enough Republicans to line up in support of the bill. His provision also allowed states to seek waivers from the federal requirements that insurers provide all policyholders with a specific package of benefits such as hospitalization and maternity care.
MacArthur told those at his town hall in Willingboro said the Republicans were trying to hold down insurance premiums to attract more customers.
“Healthy folks are not getting insured,” he said. “They’re dropping out.”
But almost four times as many voters, 42 percent, said they expected their health care costs to go up under the Republican plan, compared with the 11 percent who said they expected their costs to drop. Thirty-seven percent said they expected no change.
A majority of voters, 53 percent, said President Donald Trump should oppose efforts to repeal the health care law while 44 percent said he should support them.
Trump, who pledged during the campaign to repeal the Affordable Care Act, hosted a victory rally in the White House Rose Garden after the bill passed the House even though the legislation broke two of his other promises.
One was to provide coverage for everybody. The second was not to cut Medicaid, the health care program for the poor, disabled and elderly.
The Republican bill cuts funding for Medicaid by almost $840 billion over 10 years with the savings going to reduce taxes for corporations and wealthy Americans.
The poll of 1,078 registered voters was conducted May 4-9 and had a margin of error of 3 percentage points.
View the post here.