Today, the Senate is set to vote on Trumpcare — a devastating bill that will take away more than a half million Virginians’ health care, gut protections for pre-existing conditions, cut Medicaid, and decimate funding for mental health and substance abuse. There’s still wild speculation about what the final bill will look like. Here’s what we do know: the proposed legislation will either be bad — or very bad — for Virginians. Trumpcare will:

• Take away health care from at least 520,000 Virginians.
• Gut funding for Medicaid — jeopardizing the health of nearly one in three Virginia children and the 15 percent of Virginia’s seniors and people with disabilities who rely on Medicaid for care.
• Allow states to seek a waiver that would allow insurance companies to charge extremely high costs for the 3.4 million Virginians with pre-existing conditions. Ed Gillespie has said he would seek this waiver as governor.

In short, this is a terrible bill and Republicans across the country — from Ohio Governor John Kasich to Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval — have come out against it. But throughout the raging debate, Gillespie has remained silent. He has said almost nothing about what he would like to see in the bill and ducked and dodged weeks of questions about the legislation. Instead, he has bragged about his close friends in the administration and said he is “eager” to work with President Trump — on anything other than protecting Virginians’ care.

“Ed Gillespie’s refusal to come out against Trumpcare is an act of political cowardice and a betrayal of the people of Virginia,” said DPVA spokesperson Kevin Donohoe. “More than a half million Virginians could lose their health care and Ed Gillespie is silent. Gillespie’s refusal to stand up to Donald Trump exposes him as nothing more than a political opportunist who cares more about himself than the people of the commonwealth.”