Dignity Health Opposes the Graham-Cassidy Amendment to Repeal ACA

San Francisco, CA – September 22, 2017 – Dignity Health is committed to preserving access to care, improving the quality and affordability of care, ensuring the necessary resources to deliver on our mission, and protecting the sacred bond between patient and caregiver.

Dignity Health opposes the Graham-Cassidy amendment to repeal the Affordable Care Act. The legislation will erode coverage for millions of Americans and eliminate critical medical services by stripping tens of billions of dollars from state budgets. The plan calls for radically restructuring and cutting Medicaid, which will inhibit our ability to provide essential care to the most vulnerable members of our community, especially children, the elderly, people with chronic conditions, such as cancer, and disabled individuals in need of long-term services and support. The bill would also destabilize the individual insurance market by drastically reducing the funding available for federal subsidies and removing protections for individuals who purchase coverage in the insurance marketplace.

The Graham-Cassidy bill will impact California by targeting states that enrolled a high number of people in affordability programs such as Covered California. The estimated impact for the state is catastrophic—45 percent of all expected savings in the measure comes directly out of California. This will dismantle the safety net in California, and put more than 6.7 million people at risk of losing coverage.

Dignity Health encourages our nation’s leaders to recognize our shared humanity as we work together to strengthen America’s health care system through sound health care policy.

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About Dignity Health

Dignity Health, one of the nation’s largest health care systems, is a 22-state network of more than 9,000 physicians, 62,000 employees, and 400 care centers, including hospitals, urgent and occupational care, imaging centers, home health, and primary care clinics. Headquartered in San Francisco, Dignity Health is dedicated to providing compassionate, high-quality, and affordable patient-centered care with special attention to the poor and underserved. In FY16, Dignity Health provided $2.2 billion in charitable care and services. For more information, please visit our website at www.dignityhealth.org. You can also follow us on Twitter and Facebook.