After staying mostly silent in the months since Donald Trump took office, former President Barack Obama stepped off the sidelines Thursday, slamming the Senate Republican bill to repeal and replace Obamacare, denouncing the legislation as “a massive transfer of wealth from middle-class and poor families to the richest people in America,” and making an emotional appeal for Capitol Hill to protect health-care coverage for millions of vulnerable families.

In a blistering takedown, Obama lambasted G.O.P. senators for not opposing Mitch McConnell’s bill, suggesting that they are more focused on political wins than health-care policy. “I recognize that repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act has become a core tenet of the Republican Party,” the former president wrote in a lengthy Facebook post. “Still, I hope that our Senators, many of whom I know well, step back and measure what’s really at stake, and consider that the rationale for action, on health care or any other issue, must be something more than simply undoing something that Democrats did.”

The Senate bill, unveiled today, is not a health care bill. It’s a massive transfer of wealth from middle-class and poor families to the richest people in America. It hands enormous tax cuts to the rich and to the drug and insurance industries, paid for by cutting health care for everybody else. Those with private insurance will experience higher premiums and higher deductibles, with lower tax credits to help working families cover the costs, even as their plans might no longer cover pregnancy, mental health care, or expensive prescriptions. Discrimination based on pre-existing conditions could become the norm again. Millions of families will lose coverage entirely.