Your Opinion: New health plan drops coverage for many

Dear Editor:

From the Congressional Budget Office report, we learned that if the Affordable Care Act (ACA, also known as Obamacare) is repealed and Republicans' American Health Care Act (AHCA) becomes law, millions of people would lose healthcare coverage next year, and that number would double over 10 years.

Thanks to the ACA, the uninsured rate in Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer's district has dropped from 11.4 percent to 8.3 percent. Over 28,000 of us purchase our coverage through the ACA marketplace; 28,000 people who will no longer have coverage if the marketplace is dismantled.

428,000 of us now have free coverage for preventive healthcare through the ACA.

Over 488,000 workers in Luetkemeyer's district are insured through employment. Without the ACA, businesses with 50 or more employees would no longer be required to provide coverage, and those that do would no longer be required to cover pre-existing conditions. In addition, employer-provided insurance would be taxed under AHCA.

The subsidies that are now income-based would become age-based in the AHCA, allowing insurance companies to charge people over age 50 thousands more in premiums. 25,000 individuals in Luetkemeyer's congressional district receive income-based subsidies to purchase coverage under the ACA. The new plan proposes to change assistance from subsidies to tax credits. A tax credit is of no use to someone who doesn't make enough to pay taxes!

The ACA ended gender discrimination in insurance pricing and annual or lifetime limits on healthcare expenditures. Women have been able to obtain oral contraceptives without copays.

With repeal, we also stand to lose coverage for mental health care and substance abuse treatment.

Republicans' AHCA would strip all federal funding from Planned Parenthood. People who receive preventive care, STI testing, and linkage to further follow-up at Planned Parenthood clinics would have to find new providers; inconvenient for anyone, but particularly daunting when care is as personal as gynecologic care, transgender services, and STI treatment/prevention.

For an insurance system to function, healthy people as well as people who need insurance coverage right now need to buy in. Under the AHCA, people without coverage would not pay a tax penalty, as they do now. The penalty would instead become a 30 percent hike in premiums for people who fail to maintain continuous coverage, an onerous stipulation that will only contribute to the problem of healthy people going without coverage.

 

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