Yesterday the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office released its report on the impact of the House Republican plan to repeal the Affordable Care Act and replace it with the AHCA. The bottom line: 23 million Americans will lose health care coverage, one million Ohioans among them.
The impact will be felt primarily by the most vulnerable members of society. Senior citizens. The poor. The sick. The very people who we, as a country, should be doing the most to help would be the ones harmed the most by this callous, cruel and immoral law.
What’s more, the CBO report reminds us that it’s not just those who are on Medicaid or who purchase insurance through ACA exchanges who will be harmed by this law. To the contrary, the CBO reports that insurance coverage for one-sixth of all Americans would “become unstable by 2020.”
This will occur because of the increased costs and pressure put on our health care system which will now be serving millions without being paid for it. This will occur because the AHCA gives states the right to drastically cut health care benefits to those with preexisting conditions and to drastically increase the number of conditions deemed “preexisting.” This will occur because, under the AHCA, health insurance premiums will rise by 20 percent by 2018 and another five percent the following year. Again, all confirmed by the non-partisan CBO.
All of this so that Republicans can give a massive tax cut to the rich. All of this to please the insurance companies and drug companies which have donated millions to Republican campaigns. None of this to help Americans who have found themselves victimized by callous and uncaring health insurers, drug companies and medical expenses which have spiraled out of control due to gouging and profit-seeking by the very people supporting the AHCA.
Yesterday, my congressman, Pat Tiberi, called this “just the start.” If this is how it starts, God help us all once he and his Republican colleagues in Congress really get going.
The AHCA will do violence to millions of Americans, preventing the sick from obtaining necessary medical treatment and forcing those who do manage to obtain treatment to risk bankruptcy and financial ruin.
Any lawmaker who supports it has abdicated their responsibility to their constituents and has shown themselves unfit for public service. They should be told this in no uncertain terms and they should be voted out of office at the earliest available opportunity.
