The Republican Party's repeal-and-replace bill for Obamacare, which has been showing signs of collapsing since as early as last week, is now facing a particularly harsh backlash from President Donald Trump's home state of New York.
The deal, which the Center for American Progress observed would "blow a $2 billion hole in the state budget," has caused New Yorkers to line up to register their outrage. CAP also pointed out that the earmark specifically for New York negotiated by some of the state's GOP congressmen would force the state "to make up for this gap with massive cuts to state spending on county aid and other programs."
The earmark, crafted by Chris Collins and John Faso, would force New York's Medicaid costs to be fully covered by the state government instead shared among the state and counties. Although this could save some New York counties as much as $2.3 billion annually, it runs the risk of costing New York that same amount in matching federal dollars, if the state government decided to require those counties to continue contributing to the cost of Medicaid. In addition, it could wind up increasing the tax burden imposed on New Yorkers from their state government.
The Editorial Board of Newsday singled out the two New York Republicans who negotiated the earmark, claiming that because "their regions would likely benefit from the change" that they "agreed to shaft the rest of New York in return for their votes." Meanwhile Gov. Andrew Cuomo denounced the new earmark by claiming that Republicans in Congress had "declared war on New York."
"I suggested we put this in and the question that came back was, ‘If we do it, can we get the New York votes?’"Collins told The New York Times. He claimed that, with one exception, "the rest of us, kind of as a pack, went to leadership and said, ‘Yeah, you get this in here, you’ve got our votes.’"
The American Health Care Act is expected to go to a floor vote in the House of Representatives on Thursday, even though the Republican Party leadership acknowledged as of Tuesday that they didn't have the votes to pass it.
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