Cleveland Clinic CEO Cosgrove Makes It Clear: He's Against Latest Obamacare Repeal Bill

CLEVELAND, OH—Dr. Toby Cosgrove, the president and CEO of the world-renowned health institution Cleveland Clinic has weighed in the on the latest attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act: It’s “not comforting.”

In a rare op-ed piece posted to the Cleveland Clinic’s website, Cosgrove sounds alarm bells over the proposal and Congressional Republicans efforts to swiftly pass the bill. He notes that if the Graham-Cassidy bill passes, it likely will hurt patients, hospitals and states, alike.

“Under Graham-Cassidy, it’s likely that fewer people will be covered by health insurance, while those with pre-existing medical conditions may pay more, if they can secure coverage at all,” Cosgrove writes.

Additionally, more than one in five U.S. hospitals are already running in the red, while more than half are losing money on the administration of care, he writes. “The decreased Medicaid funding in Graham-Cassidy will threaten the financial viability of hospitals nationwide.”

Cosgrove also cites a study by the Kaiser Family Foundation, which indicated that overall federal funding for Medicaid and state coverage expansions would drop $160 billion between 2020 and 2026 under the bill.

And, like many opponents of the bill, Cosgrove points out that the bill is being rushed through Congress without proper vetting.

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“It was only unveiled last week and will be voted on next week, without a score from the Congressional Budget Office and with no chance to fully vet the bill’s side effects,” Cosgrove writes. “What we do know, though, is not comforting.”

The Graham-Cassidy bill, devised by Republican lawmakers Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Rep. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, is in many ways more dramatic than previous versions of Obamacare "repeal" bills.

It essentially ends the federal spending on Obamacare insurance subsidies and Medicaid expansion, instead giving states lump sums of money for covering their residents' health care costs. States that expanded Medicaid would get less money than they do now, while those that didn't expand would get more.

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Also on Friday, Sen. John McCain, the veteran Republican from Arizona now battling cancer, said he would oppose the law, all but ensuring that it would fail in the Senate. He called lawmakers from both parties to work together to come up with a viable health care option.

"I believe we could do better working together, Republicans and Democrats, and have not yet really tried," McCain said.

GOP leaders hoped to bring the legislation to the Senate floor next week. They face a Sept. 30 deadline, at which point special rules that prevent a Democratic filibuster will expire.

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