What Will Happen When the Affordable Care Act is Repealed?

There are many benefits to the ACA and they have helped almost all Americans whether you have private insurance or are covered under the ACA.

*First, your young adult children can stay on their parent’s insurance until the age of 26.

*Pre-existing conditions are covered, this means if you are insured through your employer and want to change jobs, your pre-existing condition will be covered under your new insurance.

*Women can no longer be charged up to 80% more for insurance premiums than men are.

*Mental health conditions must be covered the same as medical health conditions.

*Free preventive care.

*Tax breaks for small employers.

*Prescription discounts for seniors.

*Birth control coverage.

*No annual or lifetime maximum benefit.

*Your insurance company can no longer drop you for getting sick!

There are many other benefits, but think about what will happen when/if the ACA is repealed?  If you have diabetes or some other chronic disease and you change insurances, your diabetes won’t be covered.  Ever.  If you are hospitalized with one or two serious surgeries, you won’t have to be concerned about exceeding your “lifetime” benefit, which was generally $500,000, in some cases $1,000,000.  Imagine that you work for your employer for 20 or 30 years.  In that time, you could have a serious injury, a couple of surgeries, on-going care for a chronic condition….but you could quickly exceed your annual or lifetime limit…then the rest of your care is out of your pocket.  If you’ve been healthy and paying your premiums, then are diagnosed with cancer, your insurance company can drop your coverage.

The ACA has also created hundreds of thousands of jobs.  When more people have access to health care, hospitals need more nurses, certified nurse assistants, Nutritionists, Radiologists, Lab techs, etc.    In the county where I live, it is estimated that 3,000 jobs will be lost if the ACA is repealed.  Not only will people lose access to health care, but people will lose their jobs.  How does this help any of us?

The ACA is far from perfect, but it’s a giant step forward.  Let’s work out the kinks instead of scrapping it and starting all over.