Kim Guadagno claims she’s running for governor to make “New Jersey better,” but so far the state has only heard silence from her on the Cassidy-Graham-Heller repeal plan. The widely condemned bill, even by New Jersey hospitals, would cut funding in New Jersey by $8.548 billion in 2027 alone, leaving New Jersey families struggling to find affordable, high-quality health care. It’s time for Guadagno to come clean and once and for all say if she supports this latest attempt to strip health care away from millions.

“It’s clear that the Cassidy-Graham-Heller repeal bill is Republicans’ worst repeal effort yet, and it’s time for Kim Guadagno to take a stand on the issue. This bill guts Medicaid, cuts crucial funding all across the country and makes it more expensive for seniors, people with disabilities, and families with children to access quality health care,” said DNC Spokesperson Elizabeth Renda. “If Guadagno wants to fight for New Jersey, she should stand up to Donald Trump and the Republican Senators who have tried this before, because New Jerseyans have sent them a clear message: they have had enough of Republican efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act.”

If passed, the Cassidy-Graham-Heller plan would:

• Cut funding in New Jersey by $8.548 billion in 2027 alone, leaving more New Jersey families struggling to find affordable, high-quality health care coverage.
• Make it more difficult for low- and middle-income families to obtain coverage by eliminating the ACA’s Medicaid expansion and marketplace subsidies – and ending Medicaid as we know it.
• Gut funding for millions of families with children, people with disabilities and seniors by 2020.

Read on for a sampling of local New Jersey coverage of the Cassidy-Graham-Heller Bill:

          NJ.com: “N.J. hospitals say new Republican Obamacare repeal 'would hurt millions of people'”

“Hospitals in New Jersey and the nation's doctors have joined efforts to defeat the Senate Republicans' last-minute effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

(…)

“‘Once again, we're staring down a bad bill that would hurt millions of people, and Senate leadership seems intent on ramrodding it through the process with insufficient information and no opportunity for public input,’ said Betsy Ryan president and chief executive of the New Jersey Hospital Association.”

Star Ledger Editorial Board: “The Obamacare Repeal Zombie has returned. Someone kindly kill it.”

“In what is essentially a fourth bite of a poison apple, Republicans will attempt one last time to deprive tens of millions of people of their health care in order to give a trillion-dollar tax cut to the wealthiest Americans, because the GOP's vulgar and twisted vision of government does not prohibit cruelty in pursuit of legislative victory.

(…)

“And in our state, 900,000 people would lose Medicaid expansion coverage or private insurance. Those still left on Medicaid – roughly 1 million seniors, children, and disabled – would experience a major reduction in benefits or lose eligibility entirely.”

NJ.com: “There's a last-ditch Republican effort to repeal Obamacare, and it would still slam N.J.”

“Under the block grants, the 31 states that expanded Medicaid would get less money and the 19 that didn't would get more.

“So Graham's home state would get an additional $804 million at New Jersey's expense. Only three states would be hit harder than the Garden State: California, New York and Massachusetts.”