Sen. Bill Cassidy Wednesday insisted that the healthcare bill he and Sen. Lindsey Graham have crafted will result in protection for people with pre-existing conditions and cover more people, while rejecting an argument by late night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel that he'd lied about what their plan covers.
"There will be billions of dollars of coverage for families in states like Maine, Virginia, Missouri, Florida, and elsewhere, states that have been bypassed by Obamacare, Cassidy told MSNBC's "Morning Joe" program.
"Those folks will have insurance and there's protection for those with pre-existing conditions.
Kimmel, though, said during his program Tuesday night that Cassidy "just lied right to my face," reports NBC News.
"He said he would only support a healthcare bill that made sure a child like mine would get the health coverage he needs no matter how much money his parents make," Kimmel said, referring to his infant son, who was born with a serious heart condition.
He also played back a clip of Cassidy answering "yep" when he was asked if all Americans, regardless of income, should be able to obtain healthcare services.
"So yep is Washington for nope, I guess," Kimmel said. "By the way, before you post a nasty Facebook message saying I'm politicizing my son's health problems, I want you to know I am politicizing my son's health problems because I have to."
Cassidy insisted Wednesday that children, such as Kimmel's son, that are born with a congenital heart disease would "absolutely" get the coverage they need under the Graham-Cassidy plan.
According to CNN Money, the wide-ranging bill repeals Obamacare individual and employer mandates; loosens regulations regarding pre-existing conditions; revamps Medicaid funding; allows states to require able-bodied adult Medicaid recipients to work for their benefits; allows people in the individual market to buy catastrophic policies; repeals some taxes while keeping others; defunds Planned Parenthood and increases maximum health savings account contributions.
Cassidy denied Wednesday that states getting waivers could offer prohibitively high-priced coverage for people with pre-existing conditions, saying the coverage has to be "adequate and affordable."
He admitted that definition would vary among recipients, but said "typically those people who have different definitions are trying to protect Obamacare, think it's the only way to be and, therefore, they attempt to discredit our plan."
Cassidy also insisted that families will pay less under his plan than they do now for insurance, and denied the plan cuts Medicaid coverage for low-income seniors, children, and for people with disabilities.
"There's two pots of money," he said. "There's the traditional Medicaid and the flexible block grant. The flexible block grant dollars go through the CHIP program and that has to be focused on those who begin at 50 percent of federal poverty level going up. States can spend it higher on the CHIP program, but the focus has to be on those from 50 percent to 138 percent of federal poverty level. "
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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