Vigil held outside US Rep. Bill Flores' office in support for the Affordable Care Act
More than 60 members of TX-17 Indivisible Bryan/College Station clutched candles, flashlights and American flags outside U.S. Rep. Bill Flores' Bryan office Wednesday night to express their support for the Affordable Care Act.
"Health care is a right, not a privilege," Dr. Elizabeth Berigan, a primary-care doctor in Bryan, told the crowd.
Flores -- who said he was "glad" his constituents exercised their right to protest outside his office -- and his colleagues vote today on a major health care overhaul that would repeal the Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare, and replace it with the American Health Care Act, or AHCA. The AHCA is a Republican bill that would freeze Medicaid expansion by 2020, lift the mandate requiring all Americans to purchase health insurance and offer monthly tax credits based solely on age -- not income level, cost of living and age, as with the ACA -- to offset high premium costs.
Last week, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office released an analysis of the bill, projecting that it would lower the federal deficit by $337 billion over a decade, but at the cost of causing 24 million to lose their insurance over the same time frame. Premiums would rise until 2020 -- ballooning up to 20 percent higher for single policyholders in 2018 and 2019 -- before falling, according to the CBO analysis. The same report predicted that young policyholders would benefit the most from the bill, while older enrollees would see substantially higher premiums.
Read more: http://www.theeagle.com/news/local/vigil-held-outside-us-rep-bill-flores-office-in-support/article_823116fa-b31b-5d83-84fb-a5ca2b954cef.html