By SJ Otto
For years now the Republican Party has been trying to
kill Obamacare (Affordable Care Act or ACA). That was a major promise made by
President Donald Trump as he ran his election campaign. But he also promised to
replace Obamacare with his own program that would take care of the nearly 20 million people who
now have health insurance thanks to the act. Trump has kept the first part of
his promise. The Republicans are busy trying to repeal Obamacare. The second
part is not so clear. There is no replacement of the ACA. Chances are there
never will be a replacement. That has been traditional Republican strategy.
And so far repeal and no replacement is causing a
backlash across the country. Angry people are not just willing to die over
Trump’s inaction on health care.
The strategy has always been to keep US medical policy
the same. Those who make good money can either afford the extremely expensive insurance
rates or some lucky workers get some kind of coverage through
their job. There is also Medicaid for those few individuals who are poor enough
to be eligible for public assistance. And thanks to hard working Republican
leaders, very few poor people are eligible for Medicaid, in most states.
The Republicans represent the 1
percent of the population who have most of the money and most of the political
power (such as the Koch brothers).
They want to do what is best for businesses and wealthy people who profit for
voting for them. And they represent the insurance companies that profit off of
the sick and dying, but wealthy individuals.
So the real plan for US medical policy is actually
repeal Obamacare then stall. That will give them what they want….the old status
quo we had before President Barack Obama.
But so far, many of the people who are set to lose the
coverage, that they have, are not willing to just die off for the benefit and
convenience of their wealthier fellow citizens. Reports have come in from all
over the country that Republican politicians have been hearing from such
people—the people whose health is now at risk because Obamacare is being
repealed and not replaced. According to last Sunday’s The Wichita Eagle:
“It's a scene that's played out around the country
over the past several weeks as Republicans and President Donald Trump have
assumed control of Washington and begun moving forward on their long-held
promise to undo former President Barack Obama's health care law. In an echo of
the raucous complaints that confronted Democrats back in 2009 as they worked to
pass "Obamacare" in the first place, Republicans who want to repeal
it now are facing angry pushback of their own at constituent gatherings from
Utah to Michigan to Tennessee and elsewhere, even in solidly Republican
districts.”
And The Wichita Eagle article had its
own example of a person who is worried about his loss of insurance:
“The voter identified himself as a cancer survivor,
and he had something to say to Republican Rep. Justin Amash: "I am scared
to death that I will not have health insurance in the future."
The comment earned 61-year-old retiree Paul Bonis a
standing ovation from the crowd packed into a school auditorium in Amash's Michigan
district Thursday night. And the congressman was booed for his response: That
the Affordable Care Act has "hurt a lot of people," and he supports
his party's plans to repeal and replace it, even though the GOP still hasn't
united around an alternative.”
It seems a lot of people have said they are scared
that they will die waiting around for the Republicans to come up with a better
plan. They should worry, because the plan is really to do nothing once the old
act is repealed. I know I am scared, because my wife retires this year and when
she does I will not have health insurance. I had Hepatitis C for nearly 10
years. I was treated for it with an old set of medicines that made me real
sick, almost like a person going through Chemotherapy, as they do for cancer.
The first treatment didn’t work. I have stage four liver damage. A few years
ago they came out with a new drug that cures Hep C. Even though I am free of
the viruses, the disease has left me with liver damage and other health
problems. If I can’t afford health insurance under someone’s plan, I will
probably die in the next few years. I know there are many people who are in
similar situations. As with many others, I don’t want to die just so some
wealthier people won’t be inconvenienced or because the drug companies need to
make massive profits. Facing death over a political situation creates contempt.
And it should cause contempt as it has. For example, from The Wichita
Eagle:
“In a Salt Lake City suburb on Thursday night, GOP
Rep. Jason Chaffetz faced irate constituents chanting "Do your job!"
as they pressed the House Oversight Committee chairman to investigate Trump.
Chaffetz struggled to be heard as he faced a litany of sharp questions and
screams from a crowd of people who grilled him on everything from Obamacare to
Chaffetz's desire to overturn a new national monument in southern Utah.”
This is what is needed here in this country. There
needs to be a powerful backlash against repealing Obamacare and finally—we may
have that backlash. It is badly needed. Even before Trump won, there are parts
of the country where Obamacare is not being implemented because of certain
stubborn Republican Governors and state legislators. Such an example is Kansas
Governor Sam Brownback. He has opposed every part of Obamacare
including expanding KanCare,
his state's version of Medicaid. The results are that many working poor people
and other poor persons are dying from preventable diseases. There has been some
backlash against him, but it hasn’t been enough.
Much of what the Republicans are talking about doing,
to replace Obamacare, is the usual foolishness that comes from their
insensitivity to the poor. For example they want to encourage poor persons to
build savings accounts for their medical needs. If I set up such an account, I
might as well start a second one for a Learjet. The cost of medical treatment
in the US is so ridiculously high that it isn’t much cheaper
than buying a Learjet.
This backlash is a positive sign. If we can capitalize
on it, then we can begin to push for serious change in US medical policy. We
need a single payer system. But anything is better than the status quo we had
before Obamacare. For all its wealth, the US has the worst health care system
in the industrialized world.
To see The Wichita Eagle article
click here.
Pix by
Huffington Post.
No comments:
Post a Comment