With a blue-sheeted hospital bed in the background, Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto took her place Friday morning in the heart of Las Vegas’ University Medical Center to denounce a health care bill her Republican colleagues hope to push through the Senate when they return from a recess.

The junior senator’s news conference coincided with the release of a policy brief from UNLV’s Nevada Institute For Children’s Research and Policy that outlined potential consequences of the Senate’s Obamacare repeal and replace effort. The legislation, called the Better Care Reconciliation Act, would reduce federal Medicaid financing in Nevada by $4.5 billion over 10 years and could leave 264,000 fewer people in Nevada with Medicaid coverage in 2022 than under the current law, according to the brief.

“What I’m seeing is a tragedy,” said Cortez Masto, who later said she would be supportive of some sort of public health insurance option down the road. “Let’s be clear. Both the House version and the Senate version are not health care bills. They’re masquerading as health care bills. They’re tax cuts for the wealthy on the backs of people who have health care for the first time, who we should be fighting for.”

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky, was forced to cancel a vote on the bill last week because he didn’t have the needed 52 Republicans on board. One of the dissenters has been Nevada’s Republican Sen. Dean Heller, who’s taken Gov. Brian Sandoval’s lead in rejecting the measure.

“He's on the side of the governor, and if that's the case, then that's the right side to be on,” she told reporters after the press conference. “I agree with Gov. Sandoval -- these families are worth fighting for.”

She didn’t declare victory even after comments McConnell made at a Kentucky Rotary Club meeting on Thursday that signaled he was plotting a Plan B should the bill fail. At that event, the Senate leader said, “If my side is unable to agree on an adequate replacement, then some kind of action with regard to the private health insurance market must occur.”

“The fight's not over,” Cortez Masto said. “I would never underestimate Mitch McConnell. And that's why we need to be vigilant.”

The press conference featured personal stories of people affected by the health care safety net. Clark County Commissioner Lawrence Weekly said he got emotional being at the public hospital because it’s where an indigent, uninsured woman gave birth 53 years ago — his mother — and where he was cared for before he became a ward of the state.

Medicaid recipient Jenny Stiles, 30, explained that she had dozens of surgeries, is waiting for transplants of two organs and has nearly died on four occasions because of a host of chronic conditions and birth defects. The federal insurance has kept her alive, she said.

Cortez Masto conceded that there are problems with the Affordable Care Act, pointing to high premiums and prescription drug costs. She also noted the instability in markets that had led to insurers pulling out of the Nevada exchange and leaving rural residents the prospect of no exchange-qualified plans — an issue she said is addressed in the “Marketplace Certainty Act” bill she introduced late last month.

“There's a combination of things we should look at that are not working right now in the Affordable Care Act,” she said. “Let's keep what works in the Affordable Care Act and fix what doesn't. That's where it should start.”

The senator expressed support for a public option in health care, which would be a federally run insurance program that would compete with private insurers — something similar to Medicare but for people under the age of 65. But she also noted there would have to be a way to pay for it.

“I think we need a public option. It starts right now with keeping the ACA where we are and improving upon that,” she said. “We should start with what we've got now that's working and continue to improve upon that. If it takes us in that direction, then we should be looking at it. But we also have to address the cost associated with it.”

She also avoided criticizing Sandoval’s veto of a Democrat-backed bill, sometimes called “Sprinklecare” in a nod to its sponsor, Assemblyman Mike Sprinkle, that would have allowed all Nevadans to buy into a Medicaid-style plan at a cost even if they weren’t eligible for free care through Medicaid.

“I didn't look at that bill so that's a question for the governor,” Cortez Masto said. “But I will tell you … it is about bringing health care, access to affordable health care, to people and opening that door wider so more people have access. That's where we should be looking.”

Feature photo: U.S. Senator Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) speaks during a Nevadans Together for Medicaid news conference at University Medical Center on Friday, July 7, 2017. (Jeff Scheid/The Nevada Independent)