Steve Beshear, the Democratic former Kentucky governor, denounced Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell for betraying his constituents who rely on Medicaid and other government-funded health care programs.

Kentucky’s uninsured rate dropped more than any other state under the Affordable Care Act, and Beshear questioned his former law school classmate for undoing those benefits with no clear explanation.

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“It’s really deplorable, when you look at what his actions, particularly on this bill, will do to his own constituents,” Beshear told the New Republic‘s Brian Beutler. “I mean, it is not only going to damage people’s lives. He’s going to cost people their lives. People will die because of legislation like this, if it passes.”

Beshear pointed out that McConnell used to be a liberal Republican who supported abortion rights and enjoyed the support of labor unions, but he had sold out his core values to accumulate power in a radicalized GOP.

“I’ve just watched as time has gone on, and as his party has continued to evolve, he’s evolved, too, and he has moved to a point to where — you know, it’s totally almost, ‘I’ll take whatever position I need to take to have the power I want to have,'” Beshear said. “You know, he’s now majority leader of the United States Senate. But the relationships he has today have no relationship to who he was back when he first started in politics.”