Dr. Kavita Patel, a primary care doctor at Johns Hopkins and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who worked on the Affordable Care Act, spoke with us about the dire realities of the bill as is.
“Planned Parenthood will go away, Medicaid paying for contraception will probably go away,” she explained. “Here’s the truth as a woman—go get your birth control now because, honestly, nobody knows if all of this passes if you’ll be able to get this in three months.”
We also discuss the major, obvious question: Who was this bill for? Surely it wasn’t for the vast majority of Americans, who will be discouraged from seeking costly care; It wasn’t for women, who will lose vital services if Planned Parenthood is defunded; It wasn’t even for Republicans, many of whom are coming out in opposition to the poorly considered proposal. Was it to give something Donald Trump to gnaw on when he gets colicky? To quiet the screaming hole in the back of Paul Ryan’s head?
“We need to demand better out of our system and we need to demand better from our government,” Patel told us. “We shouldn’t release the pressure on our elected officials until they answer: why does it have to be this way? It should be better.”
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