Last Friday, Republicans had an abrupt and rude awakening, but it was nowhere near as rude as Americans having their healthcare rights attacked for the profits of the wealthiest.
Americans rejected GOP plans to repeal the Affordable Care Act, and used their collective voices to, for once, be heard by their elected officials.
House Republicans were left with no alternative but to abandon it.
Speaker Paul Ryan said, “We're going to be living with Obamacare for the foreseeable future.” He even went so far as to call it the law of the land. Yes, no kidding!
There is no way to truly articulate what this victory means, but I will try my best.
24 million people won’t lose their health care — I count myself among them. I have a rare and difficult-to-treat heart arrhythmia, what insurance companies used to deem a “pre-existing condition”, before the passage of the Affordable Care Act. Other such outrageous excuses insurance companies used to be permitted to use to drop coverage included current or prior pregnancy. Women could also legally be charged more than men, merely for the possibility that maternity coverage might come up. The Affordable Care Act ended this maddening act of discrimination.
insurance companies must still cover basic health services, like cancer screenings, maternity care and doctor visits, and Medicaid will continue to offer critical coverage to children, seniors and people with disabilities. For everyone, it means that there still are no lifetime limits or caps on how much care you can get. The Affordable Care Act has saved families from bankruptcy, and more importantly, it has saved lives.
Here’s a quick look at the 5 reasons why Republican efforts to repeal the health law were defeated and why it matters:
People Supported the Affordable Care Act and Rejected Repeal:Poll after poll showed that the Affordable Care Act had become more popular than ever and that voters did not want it repealed. The most recent Kaiser Health Tracking Poll showed that the law has the highest favorability since it began polling it and Pew Research has support at an all-time high. What’s more, polls showed that people did not support efforts to fully repeal the law - in the recent Quinnipiac poll only 1-in-5 supported full repeal and only 17% supported the GOP bill.
The Republican Repeal Bill Made People Worse Off: The American Health Care Act was doomed from the start, because it failed to live up to Republican promises of “insurance for everybody” at lower costs. In fact, their bill would have meant 24 million more people without insurance, and premiums and out of pocket costs would have increased by 20 percent. If you were between the ages of 50 and 64, insurers could charge you 5 times more than younger people, no matter how healthy you were. The bill would have made it much harder to fight the opioid epidemic afflicting people across the country. And, insurance companies would no longer have to cover basic services like prescription drugs or maternity care. The only people who were better off under their plan were the the rich and insurance and pharmaceutical companies, which would have gotten a $600 billion tax break.
Even Republican Elected Officials Opposed Ending the Health Care Law:Republican senators, governors and even Republican members of Congress rejected the repeal bill because of how it would dismantle key parts of what the Affordable Care Act has achieved. Before the vote, Republican members said it would "lead to loss of coverage and make insurance unaffordable for too many Americans,” was “not as good as or better than what we currently have" and that it “would place significant new costs and barriers to care on my constituents.” It’s hard to build support to repeal something when even your own members know they need to keep it.
NY MAG: “Many Republicans in the House opposed to the bill heard this message explicitly because it threw their constituents off their insurance.”
4. People Spoke Out Across the Country:Concerned constituents showed up in droves to town halls and their members offices to share their own personal stories of what the Affordable Care Act has meant to them as well as pressing their elected officials for any details on how it would impact their lives. Since many members refused to face the public, often people held their own “empty chair” events, protested at their offices or called their members to express their concerns. And every day, all day, the grassroots made their voices heard by calling their members’ offices. Any future effort to take away people’s health care will be met by the same force.
5. The American People Expect the Trump Administration to Make the Affordable Care Act Work: Everyone now has the opportunity to work together to improve coverage and bring down costs. But first, Republicans must agree that it is time to fix the Affordable Care Act, not start from repeal which people already rejected. There is a real risk that the Administration will take actions to sabotage the law which will drive up costs and drive down competition.
VOX: "Obamacare isn’t “exploding”— but Trump could change that."
