When the independent Congressional Budget Office released its report on the new 'American Health Care Act,' there were two major findings.
First, the bill would take health insurance away from about 23 million people over the next decade. Bonnie McNutt, 13, was born with a congenital disease that results in very stiff joints and extremely weak muscles. She needs a machine to talk and the help of a personal support worker β around the clock. Beverly McNutt needs help lifting her daughter into the car, or out of the bath and getting her dressed.
She said life would be very difficult without the personal service workers that help her carry out such tasks. Berverly McNutt needs help lifting and clothing her daughter. Some of that help comes from canine companion Merv. But Bob Joondeph, the executive director of Disability Rights Oregon, says personal support workers are not cheap and the Republican health care bill would likely mean deep cuts to their ranks.
A recent study by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that Oregon ranks fourth in the nation for states with the most to lose from ending the Medicaid expansion. Oregon Democratic Senator Ron Wyden says that between the Republican health care bill and the Trump budget, Medicaid would be slashed, "So you have a trillion dollars worth of cuts in Medicaid, while you have hundreds of billions of dollars in tax breaks for the wealthy.
So there's a real imbalance here," he said. Oregon Congressman, Greg Walden , co-authored the initial Republican health care bill that never came up for a vote in the House. He has indicated he supports this latest version, but calls and emails requesting comment for this story were not returned. Exactly what will happen to the McNutt family is hard to know, largely because Senate deliberations have been held in secret.
