YORK, Pa. - Political experts on both sides of the aisle locally are chiming in on the House's vote to approve the American Health Care Act and send it to the Senate.
Conservative observers say the state's choice provisions in the American Health Care Act could raise the stakes for the governor's race next year, since the governor would ultimately have the say on asking for a waiver on the federal mandates.
"The question really is whether the goal of lowering insurance costs for all is better done with federal mandates or by letting states govern those mandates and giving more choices to individuals and to small businesses in the marketplace," Nathan Benefield, of the Commonwealth Foundation, said.
That control would filter into all sorts of healthcare decisions. A big one is Medicaid, rolling back the expansion and cutting federal spending by $880 billion over the next decade.
"The Medicaid issue in giving state government flexibility over a program which is the largest item in the state budget, has had cost overruns beyond our ability to pay and doesn't provide good quality care for those who are receiving it," Benefield said.
No house Democrats supported the bill and it faces an uncertain future in the senate. Pennsylvania Senator Bob Casey, who stopped in York to visit a local business Friday afternoon, says he's most concerned about the changes to the pre-existing conditions provisions in the bill.
"The simple answer of pre-existing conditions is maintain current law, don't play around with it and pretend that these so-called high risk pools are the answer," Casey said.
Casey says he's calling on Republican leadership in the senate to stop what he calls the process of repeal and dismantling of the current law.
"Why don't we say take repeal off the table and get Democrats and Republicans in the same room for weeks or months if necessary or longer and let's work on improvements to the bill?" Casey asked. "We all have concerns."