Sens. Cassidy, Kennedy, please vote no on Senate healthcare bill

In late 2013, after I moved to Louisiana, I lost my health insurance for four months. I also got sick, repeatedly, while living in an apartment that reeked of mildew. Water would drip in through the ceiling when it rained.

My only option at the time, when I needed antibiotics, was to go to the charity hospital in New Orleans. I remember sitting for 14 hours one night, struggling to stay awake, and talking to a woman who rescued parrots after Hurricane Katrina.

{mosads}I got antibiotics early in the morning, and I healed. Most of the people in the room — and it was packed — were black. I was one of few white faces. We kept calm, we chatted, and I watched people cough and sneeze and grimace in pain.

It is these people, their faces etched into my memory, who motivate me to ask my senators, Bill Cassidy (R-La.) and John Kennedy (R-La.), to vote against the GOP healthcare bill.

To Sen. Cassidy, I ask this: As a Christian, I don’t mind paying higher taxes so those who are suffering can have healthcare. Do you? Should you? Should those who are doing well get a tax break, while those with little influence in Washington suffer?

You, Sen. Cassidy, have a medical background. You also seem to have a genuine desire to do good by the people of your state, who are benefiting greatly from a Medicaid expansion enacted by our Democratic governor, John Bel Edwards.

The Senate’s version of healthcare legislation winds down the expansion of Medicaid at a slower pace than the House-passed American Health Care Act. That does not, however, make it palatable. It is no less immoral to deny people healthcare in the next decade than it is in this one. Not to mention all the other major flaws in both bills. Millions will lose coverage. Millions will suffer. Thousands will die.

Sen. Cassidy, before you vote for or against the healthcare bill, I urge you to stop by the charity ER in New Orleans. See the faces. Mothers, fathers, sons, daughters. They deserve to live. You and I are no better than them. I was once one of them.

This is your moment, senator. Please vote “no” on the current healthcare bill. Our healthcare system is strained. It needs work. But a bill rushed through a secretive process, especially this monstrosity, is not worthy of your vote.

From Jonathan Walczak, New Orleans

Energy Secretary Rick Perry’s denial that man-made carbon emissions are primarily responsible for climate change is deeply concerning given the overwhelming scientific evidence that emissions from cars, power plants and oil and gas facilities are leading contributors to our warming planet.

Perry’s comments came as 18 national health and medical organizations released a declaration urging action on climate change for the sake of human health, which we delivered to EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt in a meeting with health and medical leaders earlier this week urging bold action.

Scientific evidence shows that climate change is already affecting Americans’ health, and that it will lead to more harmful air pollution in many places, causing asthma attacks, heart attacks and premature deaths. Climate change poses many other health threats as well. Bottom line is, reducing emissions will save lives. Secretary Perry’s attempts to sow doubt about the causes and impacts of climate change is a threat to the health and safety of all Americans.

From Harold P. Wimmer, national president and CEO of the American Lung Association, Washington, D.C.