Oregon Gov. Kate Brown released a report Thursday saying the new health care bill proposed by Congressional Republicans would triple Oregon’s uninsured rate and cut 23,000 jobs.
Brown a Democrat, asked the state to calculate what would happen under the Republican’s American Health Care Act.
The report found as many as 465,000 Oregonians would lose health coverage in over six years and it would cost about $1 billion to maintain it.
Dan Grigg, the CEO of Harney District Hospital in Burns, said he wasn’t initially a fan of Obamacare.“If the reports are true and the number of people lose coverage because of the American Health Care Act, we will once again have families and neighbors and friends who will put off getting care, who will wait because they can’t afford it, and end up showing up in the ER much more worse than they would have been if they’d gotten treatment earlier.”
Republican Greg Walden said the American Health Care Act is a first step in the effort to reduce health care costs.
A report by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office found repeal and replacement of the Affordable Care Act would reduce the federal deficit by $337 billion over a decade but it would also leave 24 million Americans uninsured.
Copyright 2017 Oregon Public Broadcasting
