When it comes to Obamacare, the Republicans repeatedly demonstrated cruelty towards the American people. Even though the concept originated with Republican Mitt Romney, they repeatedly tried their best to block it because, in my opinion, they didn’t want President Obama receiving credit for a national health insurance law. They created an array of bogus scare tactics such as “Death Panels’, and it’s a government takeover of healthcare, etc. Nothing could be further from the truth because, per the law, all insurance is provided by PRIVATE companies.
Apparently, Republicans couldn’t care less if millions of Americans are forced to live without health insurance. When Trump was President, and they controlled both houses, they never came up with an alternative to Obamacare. That didn’t stop Trump from repeatedly promising the best health care bill ever will be ready to go in two weeks. In my opinion, that was the biggest broken promise (out of many) from Trump. Of course, his loyal followers will never hold him accountable for that failure.
Republicans recently tried to destroy the Affordable Care Act law forever, with a Texas case, supported by 17 Republican State Attorney Generals, which advanced to the Supreme Court. Thankfully, on June 17, 2021, the Supreme Court announced a 7-2 decision, rejecting the lawsuit, because they didn’t have legal standing. I’m sure the 21 million Americans on Obamacare are breathing a sigh of relief, knowing they can keep their health insurance.
Let’s acknowledge that Obamacare has flaws which need to be fixed, but that’s very doable. The main reason everyone should support the Affordable Care Act is it provides insurance to around 20-21 million people, who prior to this law, often went without health insurance. But the law did a lot more than fill in a desperately needed gap in coverage. Even though most people (around 85%) still obtain health insurance through their employers, the law has a major impact on everyone. Check out the following positive changes which apply to all Americans.
- You can no longer be denied health insurance because of Pre-Existing Conditions, and it also eliminated the Pre-Condition Penalties. By the way, it’s estimated that over 40% of Americans have pre-existing conditions.
- The unemployed can buy quality health insurance.
- Those who are Self-Employed can buy quality health insurance.
- Those who have jobs where their employer doesn’t provide health coverage can now buy it.
- Women cannot be charged extra for their premiums, which was typical before Obamacare.
- The Affordable Care Act prohibits employers from imposing annual or lifetime limits on benefits and caps out-of-pocket spending. If you get a serious illness, such as cancer, this one is huge.
- Children can stay on the parent’s policies up to the age of 25.
- Medicaid was expanded.
- For Medicare recipients, Obamacare closes the so-called Prescription Drug Doughnut Hole.
- The next one is so important, I’m going to highlight it with a different color. Insurance companies and doctors all agree on the critical importance of preventive care, which often discovers health problems before they become serious, major issues.
- Thanks to Obamacare, preventive care is free to the patient.
Do not listen to the never ending bogus, phony Republican claims about Obamacare. And don’t believe what I wrote. I encourage you to do your own research, something which rarely happens in Trump World. I’m confident you’ll learn that even with its flaws, Obamacare is having a major positive impact on America. If the Republicans don’t like the law, why don’t they come up with a better alternative? As mentioned above, they had a golden opportunity to create their own health care law during the first 2 years of the Trump Administration, but they did nothing. I think they just don’t care. They instead concentrate their efforts on taking away health insurance from approximately 21 million Americans. That is cruel and despicable.
Obama knew when he signed the Affordable Care Act that there were flaws. Obama expected Congress to fix the flaws.
Very true Dorothy! Biden repeatedly said his goal was to fix the problems in Obamacare. The biggest flaw in the law are the STATE Exchanges, something demanded by the Republicans under the so-called States Rights agenda. The State Exchanges work very well in large states where there’s lots of competition (healthcare providers), but they are often a major failure in many of the rural states, where there is little or no competition, thereby creating higher premiums and deductibles. I’m probably going to write another article explaining how to fix this serious problem.
All good points Robert and I agree with you . Problem is the non-believers no matter what they see in print won’t believe it. The flaw I did hear from some friends were they pay very high premiums with Obamacare, being self-employed, however, I don’t know the specifics.
Rhona, the primary reason premiums are high in many states, is there’s little or no competition. That’s often the case in many rural states like Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, etc. This is a major flaw in Obamacare as a result of the Republicans insisting upon STATE Exchanges under the guise of “States Rights”. I have a very simple solution which I’ll talk about in my next article on Obamacare. It involves eliminating the state exchanges and I’ll explain the rest in my next article.