* Gov. Tom Wolf on Wednesday extended an invitation to House Speaker Paul Ryan to accompany him to a Pennsylvania drug treatment center to get a greater appreciation for the possible consequences of repeal of the Affordable Care Act.
* Those who stand to lose coverage are about 700,000 Pennsylvania residents now covered under the expanded Medicaid program that’s a key part of Obamacare.
* The coverage includes drug abuse treatment, and the Wolf administration says 63,000 Pennsylvanians have received treatment as the result of the expansion
Pennlive: Gov. Wolf invites Republican architect of Obamacare repeal to check out a Pa. drug treatment center
By David Wenner
Gov. Tom Wolf on Wednesday extended an invitation to House Speaker Paul Ryan to accompany him to a Pennsylvania drug treatment center to get a greater appreciation for the possible consequences of repeal of the Affordable Care Act.
The invitation comes as Ryan is expected to attend a Republican retreat being held through Friday in Philadelphia to discuss a repeal plan.
Wolf released a letter to Ryan in which Wolf offers to adjust his schedule to accompany him to a treatment center.
At the urging of President Donald Trump, Republicans are moving quicker than expected to repeal the law known as Obamacare. That has forced them to deal with whether or not, and how, to carryout a repeal without leaving millions of Americans without health insurance.
Those who stand to lose coverage are about 700,000 Pennsylvania residents now covered under the expanded Medicaid program that’s a key part of Obamacare.
The coverage includes drug abuse treatment, and the Wolf administration says 63,000 Pennsylvanians have received treatment as the result of the expansion. Wolf says it would be devastating to pull back the federally-funded coverage in the midst of an overdose crisis, fueled mostly by heroin and opioid painkiller, which killed 3,500 people in the state last year.
Wolf wrote: “Cutting funding to Medicaid would just force states like Pennsylvania into a horrible choice of which vulnerable populations to give access to care and which to leave helpless. My greatest fear is that cuts to Medicaid and rationing of access to treatment by the federal government will set us back even further and more people will die as a result. This is not hyperbole – access to treatment through Medicaid is keeping Pennsylvanians alive who might otherwise face overdoses or worse.”
Before the Medicaid expansion many addicts turned to state-funded county treatment services, which had been running out of money before meeting demand.
Read the article here.