Senate Votes to Pass Bill with More Extreme Cuts to Medicaid and Clean Air Programs

Today, the U.S. Senate voted to pass their version of the reconciliation bill, which includes hundreds of billions of dollars in healthcare cuts and billions of dollars in cuts to critical programs to keep the air clean. In response to this bill, the American Lung Association President and CEO Harold Wimmer issued the following statement:

“The American Lung Association is incredibly disappointed that our elected leaders voted to pass a bill that has cuts to Medicaid, healthcare and clean air programs that are even more extreme than the previous version from the House of Representatives. If the current version of the reconciliation bill passes through the House and is signed by the president, it will have devastating consequences for children, seniors, people with cancer, and local communities.

“We are urging the U.S. House of Representatives to reject this bill. Affordable, quality healthcare is critical to keeping families healthy to ensure they can work and go to school. If enacted, the cuts to Medicaid and parts of the Affordable Care Act will result in more than 17 million people losing healthcare coverage. This will increase uncompensated care, lead rural hospitals to close, destabilize our nation’s entire healthcare system and increase healthcare costs for all of us. The cuts to clean air programs paired with greater investments in the buildout of fossil fuel sources will increase air pollution, cause more asthma attacks in kids and result in families paying more for utilities. 

“This bill will impact everyone in the U.S. The American Lung Association calls on the House to vote ‘no’ on this dangerous bill.”