Disturbing. Tragic. Extraordinarily troubling. Disconcerting. Sad.

Those are just some of the words original architects of the Affordable Care Act used in interviews with The Huffington Post to describe the effort by President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans to speed through a bill to repeal major parts of the law and replace it with a more meager set of health care reforms.

Its easy to see why key figures behind the biggest expansion of the social safety net in decades would be aghast at whats happening now. On Thursday seven years to the day since President Barack Obama signed the Affordable Care Act into law the House is tentatively scheduled to advance its repeal measure.

More people are going to get hurt under the Republican version than under the ACA. They may not like the ACA, but we could certainly work on it and improve it, said former Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), who chaired the Finance Committee during the period the Affordable Care Act passed Congress. The legislation that emerged from the committee in September 2009 formed the backbone of the eventual law.

But theyre going to hate the Republican version, Baucus continued, because its going to give much more benefits to the wealthy at the expense of others, and a lot of people are going to get hurt along the way.

If House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and the White House succeed in this gambit a far from certain prospect, given major schisms among Republican lawmakers about the bill the consequences would be significant.

A law that extended coverage to 20 million previously uninsured people and reduced the national share of Americans without health coverage to its lowest-ever percentage would be throttled. Almost $1 trillion in money currently financing health benefits for low- and middle-income households would be diverted for tax cuts on the wealthy and health care companies.

In the process, if the Affordable Care Act does not remain in place, 24 million more people would lack health coverage a decade from now, according to a Congressional Budget Office review of the legislation approved by three House committees this month.

Older Americans, especially those with less income, would exit the health insurance market because they wouldnt be able to afford policies, the CBO projected. States would lose $880 billion in Medicaid funding, forcing cutbacks to that program. House leaders have made changes to the bill since that analysis, but do not have a new CBO score yet.

Were in a very tough spot, and its sad. It really is very sad. But what do we do about it? People who care about all this have to just keep presenting the facts, Baucus said.

And the Democratic Party s decades-long mission to strengthen the social safety net, dating back to President Franklin Roosevelts New Deal, would suffer a major setback.

It really comes down to an attitude. We Americans have to ask ourselves: Are we in this together or are we not? asked Baucus, who served six terms in the Senate before becoming Obamas ambassador to China from 2014 until Trumps inauguration.

The Republican bill answers that question by saying, no, were not in this together, that insurance is really available for those who can afford it and is not really as available for those who cant afford it. The sort of underlying basis of the ACA was: Were in this together, were all Americans, Baucus said.

Kathleen Sebelius, who served as Obamas secretary of health and human services from 2009 to 2014, is worried about the people shes encountered who would be worse off under the House Republican bill.

I am really troubled to my soul and very disturbed about what is going to happen to the people I meet on a still-regular basis who tell me about their family situation, about their stories, about their worries that whether its themselves or their children or their parents who finally have some health security, who finally have a sense that they can count on affordable health coverage now this is going to be swept away, Sebelius said.

I find it extraordinarily troubling that individuals are rushing to take away peoples health care, to shift costs onto people who are in difficult medical situations, Sebelius said. Its hard to see who the beneficiaries are.