Washington—Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) today released the following statement in reaction to the Senate Republican health care bill:

“The health care bill that Senate Republicans finally unveiled today after months of secrecy is indefensible. Their bill takes hundreds of billions of dollars from providing health coverage to vulnerable and working people and uses it to cut taxes for millionaires and billionaires.

“The Republican bill ends the longstanding federal-state partnership that provides health care for Medicaid beneficiaries. Instead, the federal government would give California a fixed amount of money that would leave our state on the hook for billions of additional dollars in costs.

“This change would devastate 14 million Californians who are covered by Medicaid—children, pregnant women, working families, the elderly and people with disabilities. California could either kick millions off of the program, reduce access to care or divert billions from other priorities like education and transportation.

“On the individual market—Covered California—individuals and families would pay more money for less health care. Insurance companies could cover less health care costs and the cliff for tax-credit subsidies would be even steeper than under current law. This is a problem I’m trying to fix and the Republican bill makes it even worse.

“This bill does nothing to improve health care in America. I will spend every minute doing anything I can to defeat this outrageous bill.”