Predictably Evil As Ever, GOP Attacks Planned Parenthood in ACA Replacement Bill

Below is what happened on Trump's 32nd day in office. You can find out what damage was done every other day so far on the Saddest Calendar on the Internet.

Yesterday afternoon, the GOP finally unveiled their ideal health care system, which reflects their love of the free market and the rich, and their indifference toward the wellbeing of women and the poor. Among countless other revisions, the new plan would roll back the expansion of Medicaid, which has covered over 10 million people, ending its expansion by 2020. It would also eliminate the requirement that large employers must offer coverage to full-time employees. Aptly summarized in the New York Times, the new plan "[scraps] the mandate for most Americans to have health insurance in favor of a new system of tax credits to induce people to buy insurance on the open market."

As anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of the GOP's attitude towards reproductive health could have guessed, the bill completely fucks women over, poor women in particular: It would cut off federal funds to Planned Parenthood clinics through Medicaid and other government programs for one year, and it further denies women safe, affordable abortion access: "The term 'qualified health plan' does not include any health plan that includes coverage for abortions (other than any abortion necessary to have the life of the mother or any abortion with respect to a pregnancy that is a result of an act of rape or incest)," the bill reads.

The effects of defunding Planned Parenthood, as reproductive rights advocates have been saying for what feels like an eternity, would be devastating for women and men throughout the country. "One in five women in America has relied on Planned Parenthood," Dawn Laguens, the executive vice president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said in a statement. "This proposal would deny millions of women access to cancer screenings, birth control, and STD testing and treatment."

Were Planned Parenthood to lose federal funding, low-income women and women of color would disproportionately suffer. A 2016 report notes that three-quarters of Planned Parenthood patients have incomes at or below the federal poverty level, and "approximately 60 percent of Planned Parenthood patients access care through the Medicaid program and/or the Title X family planning program." In addition, 54 percent of Planned Parenthood centers are located in areas that have a shortage of health professionals, or rural or medically underserved areas. The patients who use these providers literally have nowhere else to turn.

Were Trump's legislation to pass, the millions of women who rely on Medicaid and other federal programs would lose access to a health care provider that's been around since 1916.

As a whole, as noted by a handful publications and politicians, the bill is much less severe than previous drafts and—at this time—spares a few popular provisions, such as the prohibition on denying health care coverage to those who have pre-existing conditions and allowing those under age 26 to stay on their parents' plans.

But there's no such thing as a silver lining when the health and lives of millions of people are jeopardized. "For the millions of Americans who could lose health care coverage as a result of this proposal, this isn't simply a matter of politics—this is life and death," Senator Al Franken (D-MN) wrote on Facebook. "I strongly urge my Republican colleagues to go back to the drawing board, and maybe solicit some input from your constituents this time."