Analysis, Commentary, Opinion
12.15.2018
Health Care
Yesterday
a federal judge declared the Affordable Care Act unconstitutional. His
judgement is stayed pending appeals.
It
will go to the Supreme Court where the new conservative majority will have the
opportunity to rule on it again.
He
used the legislation passed last session in grounds, the legislation that
repealed the individual mandate as his justification for ruling the entire law unconstitutional.
The Supreme Court had previously upheld the law on the grounds that the congress
was within its authority to tax the people to fund the bill, through the
individual mandate.
Now,
having removed the mandate, which the Supreme Court ruled was a tax, Congress
lacks the authority to organize our healthcare system and the insurance
marketplace in the way that the Affordable Care Act proscribes.
A
lot of people depend on this law to provide them with access to care; the
elderly and children and the poorest of the poor, especially.
I
hate to see it taken away from them, even for a day.
I
am not poor.
I
do not qualify for financial assistance.
Make
no mistake, I am not rich either. I am squarely in the lower middle class.
I
am a Veteran, honorably discharged.
I
co-own a small 750 square foot condominium, our mortgage and association fees
are reasonable.
I
lease a vehicle, it costs me $13 a day to drive it.
I
have a mountain of student debt. I cannot afford that all, but it is all being
managed in the right programs, it is not too much of a burden.
I
went to enroll in a health care plan today, and there are no good option.
Somewhere in the middle of things I found plans that would cost me, $5,000 a
year in premiums. I would have to spend another $4,000 years in deductibles
before my plan would start cost sharing with me, and at that point I would only
have to pay 15% of the bill for most things.
I
am turning 50 in 2019, and there are a lot of tests I would like to take.
I
see my therapists once a month, which costs me $150 per visit. In twelve months
of visits I would not enough reach the half way mark on my deductible
I
might get there quickly if I had an emergency, but then who knows what that
would be.
I
find it ridiculous, and I am not grateful that I will not have to pay a fine
because I am choosing not to enroll in a plan. That does not make me happy at
all.
It
makes me terribly sad for our broken system.
In
the last election cycle the most powerful message the Democratic Party had was
centered on health care. They need to drive that message home.
They
need to drive it hard.
Medicare
for all, single payer, get the insurance industry out of the system, get them
out of it all together.
Those
rich companies will find other things to insure, other places to invest their
dollars, other ways to make money.
They
don’t have a right to keep the rest of us poor just in order to protect their
profits.
Nothing
is more important.
The
Trump administration wants to get rid of the ACA, and the courts might just
give them what they want.
They
will not go to court to defend it.
Republicans
all over the country swore up and down that they will protect people’s access
to health care, even while they were doing everything they could to dismantle
the system and throw everyone onto the mercy of the private market.
Access
to health care is not just a good political issue, it is a moral imperative and
a vehicle for economic stability for everyone; rich and poor, small businesses
and large, entrepreneurs and wage earners, and everyone in between.
