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Statewide Group Calls Cassidy Out

Sue Lincoln

“Bill Cassidy said in a tweet in January that ‘no one will lose coverage’.” Together Louisiana member Nick Albares reminded everyone at a Wednesday press conference.

The statewide coalition of churches and community groups is taking U.S. Senator Bill Cassidy to task for his latest healthcare bill votes.

“He was a doctor at Earl K. Long Hospital and treated patients without insurance. He knows what Medicaid is and what it does,” said Broderick Bagert, Together Louisiana’s executive director.

The group is perturbed that Cassidy voted for opening debate on repealing the Affordable Care Act.  Together Louisiana member Stephanie McCoin says she‘s terrified where these debates could lead.

“My daughter and I have hereditary conditions that require daily medications to keep us alive. If we lose Medicaid, we lose our access to healthcare. Her health is worse than mine, and she will die without healthcare.”

On July 9th, Louisiana’s senior Senator told “FOX News Sunday”: “I have reservations about the Senate bill. A non-starter, I think it’s wrong.”

Together Louisiana maintains Cassidy’s vote for the Better Care Reconciliation Act Tuesday was a betrayal of that statement, as well as what he’d told them earlier this month.

“Senator Cassidy was one of the very few people – it might be a club of two, him and John McCain – who had articulated a critique of that bill, and then voted for that,” Bagert said. “In a meeting with us, we asked him specifically about this bill. He said he wasn’t for a tax cut bill masquerading as a health care bill. He said he wasn’t for cuts that would devastate the program. And he said, ‘I cannot support this in its current form. It is dead on arrival’.”

But Cassidy has also said repeatedly, “We need to do something different than Obamacare. We gotta get it right.”