We live in a representative democracy.\u00a0 We elect our representatives to go to national, state or local office to represent our interests and solve problems.\u00a0 Of course, not all problems can be solved and the policy triage of what gets attention and what doesn\u2019t is the decision of the representative based on what his or her constituents want or need.<\/p>\n
For years, a huge problem in America was the rapid increase in the numbers of people without health care coverage.\u00a0 In the 1960s, the nation developed Medicare, health insurance for those over the age of 65 and Medicaid, health insurance for the poor.<\/p>\n
In the 1990s, the President and the Congress expanded coverage to help cover all those under the age of 18.\u00a0 Yet, despite the fact that near-universal coverage existed for those under the age of 18, those over the age of 65, and the poor, the number of Americans without coverage continued to swell, peaking at about 50 million eight years ago.<\/p>\n
For the rest of the advanced nations of the world, it was inconceivable that such a situation existed.\u00a0 Western Europe, Canada, Japan and others have health care coverage for all of their citizens.\u00a0 As a result, despite spending far more on health care than any other nation on Earth, the United States had more uninsured, incredibly uneven health care quality, and a mediocre life expectancy compared with other developed, wealthy nations.<\/p>\n
It was a problem.<\/p>\n
Former President Obama and the Congress agreed to legislation to attempt to address that problem.\u00a0 The solution that they came up with had a modest impact on the spiraling cost of health care, but did cut in half the number of Americans that lacked health insurance.<\/p>\n
You could argue with their solution \u2013 one which essentially expanded the number of Medicaid-eligible Americans and offered subsidies to help others purchase health insurance \u2013 was inadequate to the task, but no one could argue that they did not try.<\/p>\n
For years, Republicans argued that they could do it better.\u00a0 They argued that if they were granted control of the White House and the Congress, they would repeal the Affordable Care Act and replace it with something better.\u00a0 We now know that their pledge was pure fiction.\u00a0 They had no plan to replace the ACA with anything.\u00a0 All they wanted to do was repeal.<\/p>\n
While the majority of the House of Representatives was quite willing to take away coverage from tens of millions of Americans, leaving millions without coverage was something that some Republicans in the Senate could not agree to.\u00a0 Combined with unanimous Democratic opposition, the effort to repeal the law and take away health insurance coverage from over 20 million Americans ground to a halt.<\/p>\n
President Trump, who as a candidate consistently said that he would fix the health insurance system and make it better, has now decided to just make it all worse.\u00a0 In a stunningly callous series of decisions, the President to doing all he can to deny health insurance for primarily low and moderate income Americans \u2013 individuals who currently have coverage will now lose it.<\/p>\n
Last week, the President acted to eliminate subsidies to health insurance companies that help pay out-of-pocket costs of low-income people.\u00a0 His decision came on the heels of his plans to make sweeping changes in the nation\u2019s insurance system, including sales of cheaper policies with fewer benefits and fewer protections for consumers.<\/p>\n
Without the subsidies, insurance markets could quickly unravel. Insurers have said they will need much higher premiums, probably 20 percent higher, if the subsidies were ended.<\/p>\n
Part of the President\u2019s rationale was that he believed that such payments were illegal, but he has offered no alternative to cover those who will soon be desperately in need of coverage.<\/p>\n
And that\u2019s not<\/em> what elected officials are supposed to do.\u00a0 They are supposed to make a good effort to solve<\/em> problems.\u00a0 They should allocate the nation\u2019s limited resources where needed and apply the best evidence to develop policy solutions.<\/p>\n To strip away people\u2019s health insurance coverage with no<\/em> alternative is indefensible and will cost an estimated one million Americans dearly.\u00a0 Without coverage, sick people delay care, which can lead to even more devastating health consequences.\u00a0 And those serious illnesses can cost those individuals and their families their financial security as well.<\/p>\n Many people will suffer unnecessarily due to the President\u2019s decisions and from the actions of those in Congress who are doing all they can to take away people\u2019s health insurance.\u00a0 \u00a0Our elected representatives should care about people, not use them as fodder in the nation\u2019s political wars.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" We live in a representative democracy.\u00a0 We elect our representatives to go to national, state or local office to represent our interests and solve problems.\u00a0 Of course, not all problems can be solved and the policy triage of what gets attention and what doesn\u2019t is the decision of the representative based on what his or […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1969","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1969","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1969"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1969\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1970,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1969\/revisions\/1970"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}