Healthcare bill

My husband and I are longstanding Floridians in our late 50s and early 60s. We have paid taxes since we were old enough to work.

In essence, the Republican’s American Health Care Act is a hefty tax on older Americans to price us out of healthcare and to provide tax cuts for healthcare CEOs and other wealthy (and younger) Americans. That is a heck of a way to reduce healthcare costs — let older Americans get sicker and die early.

I am an attorney, and I have a chronic autoimmune illness that requires ongoing medical treatment. Contrary to popular belief, not all attorneys are wealthy enough to afford astronomical healthcare costs. There are many older Floridians who are in similar and worse predicaments who would be priced out of not just health insurance but also healthcare. We cannot rely on emergency rooms to treat ongoing medical illnesses.

This repeal also harms the elderly, because the “doughnut hole” in Medicare would be restored with the repeal of ACA. I see nothing in this Republican replacement bill that addresses that. We, like many other Floridians, also paid into Social Security and Medicare all our working lives.

Sen. Marco Rubio has said very little. Does he not want to admit that he and fellow Republicans favor a bill that would be a huge tax break for healthcare CEOS but would harm older Floridians, and in fact could be a death sentence for many?

This story was originally published March 16, 2017 at 1:29 AM with the headline "Healthcare bill."