Former President Barack Obama on Thursday ripped the Republican Senate's plan to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, calling it "a massive transfer of wealth from middle-class and poor families to the richest people in America."
"It is not a healthcare bill," the two-term Democratic president said on Facebook. "It hands enormous tax cuts to the rich and to the drug and insurance industries, paid for by cutting healthcare for everybody else.
"Those with private insurance will experience higher premiums and higher deductibles, with lower tax credits to help working families cover the costs, even as their plans might no longer cover pregnancy, mental healthcare, or expensive prescriptions.
"Discrimination based on preexisting conditions could become the norm again. Millions of families will lose coverage entirely," Obama said.
"Simply put, if there's a chance you might get sick, get old, or start a family – this bill will do you harm," he added.
"And, small tweaks over the course of the next couple weeks, under the guise of making these bills easier to stomach, cannot change the fundamental meanness at the core of this legislation."
Senate Republican leaders introduced a draft of its version of the American Health Care Act on Thursday, after a 13-member working group crafted the legislation in secret.
Four GOP members of the chamber have already said they would not support the bill.
They are Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas, Rand Paul of Kentucky, Mike Lee of Utah, and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin.
Others said they would give the legislation, which the House passed last month, careful consideration.
Republicans hold a 52-48 majority in the Senate and cannot afford to lose more than two votes on the bill.
Obama, who signed his signature domestic legislation into law in 2010, acknowledged that Obamacare "was not perfect" – but said that the GOP plan would "raise costs, reduce coverage, roll back protections, and ruin Medicaid as we know it.
"To put the American people through that pain – while giving billionaires and corporations a massive tax cut in return – that’s tough to fathom," he said later in the post. "But it’s what’s at stake right now.
"It remains my fervent hope that we step back and try to deliver on what the American people need."
He also took to Twitter:
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