What is Congresswoman Jaime Herrera Beutler’s position on the Republicans’ proposed health care plan? On Wednesday morning, she still wasn’t saying.
After the plan was announced, a staffer told me that Herrera Beutler was waiting for the Congressional Budget Office analysis. But now we know that 14 million Americans would lose their health insurance next year, and another 10 million in subsequent years. Now we know that Trumpcare would rob from the poor to give the rich a gigantic tax cut.
Herrera Beutler has these facts in hand, but she is “still looking into it.” Her staffers can’t say when she’ll form an opinion.
Trumpcare would hit rural areas in Herrera Beutler’s district especially hard. Rural Americans tend to be poorer, sicker and older than the average American — the very groups that would be left behind by the GOP proposal. For example, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that a 64-year-old making $26,500 a year would have to spend $14,600 (more than half of their income) for an insurance plan that today costs $1,700.
Herrera Beutler recently promised to replace Obamacare with “something better.” Better for whom, though? If Trumpcare was a good plan, we’d have heard from her by now.
