Independent Guestatorial: Repeal and replace

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Three years ago I suffered an 11-foot fall onto concrete, breaking my hip and dislocating my shoulder. My head was saved by a cushion of chicken wire below and I felt lucky to be alive.

The recovery period was long and tedious with painful months of physical therapy. I was grateful to my husband and friends who offered meals and moral support, and extremely grateful that because of the Affordable Health Care Act, we did not have the added worry of looming medical bills.

Growing up in Canada, full coverage healthcare was taken for granted. While Canadians pay more in taxes, no one living north of the border has to worry about declaring bankruptcy or losing their home in order to pay medical bills or for expensive life-saving drugs. It’s simply a right afforded to all.

While not a perfect or foolproof plan, few Canadians would give it up. It helps people sleep well at night.

Back in 1993, First Lady Hillary Clinton proposed a healthcare plan similar to Canada’s single payer system, only to be foiled by Republican “socialist” scare tactics and an effective propaganda campaign brought to you by the Health Insurance Association of America. Many will remember Harry and Louise, the middleclass couple fraught with worries about “Hillarycare’s” complex and bureaucratic health care plan.

Republicans went for Hillary’s jugular, along with her “liberal, progressive agenda,” and so emboldened, took over the House and Senate the following year for the first time since the 1950s. Comprehensive healthcare reform would not be muttered again until Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign.

With lockstep Republican opposition, Obamacare, a watered-down compromise version of Obama’s more comprehensive plan, was finally enacted in March 2010. It was seen as a presidential milestone with the Far Right screaming “socialized medicine” and the Left claiming it was not progressive enough.

Former Eureka Springs resident and life-long Republican, Jeff Jeans, gained notoriety this past week making the rounds on CNN and morning talk shows after his appearance on Republican Speaker of the House Paul Ryan’s televised Town Hall meeting went viral.

Diagnosed with a rare form of cancer, Jeans was given six weeks to live and related to Speaker Ryan how as a small business person, he would be dead if not for Obamacare.

Jeans was eloquent, moving and direct, and interrupted Ryan to personally thank President Obama from the bottom of his heart for saving his life.

Republicans, again in control of the House and Senate – this time with a Republican president – have vowed to repeal the Affordable Healthcare Act and replace it with “something better.” While some Republicans have publicly stated repeal and replacement would happen simultaneously, they have already begun the repeal process with no progress on the much more difficult and contentious part, a replacement plan. One would think after eight years of doing everything in their power to kill Obamacare, they might have had an alternative health plan in the wings.

People are rightfully scared. The 20 million previously uninsured and the 52 million whose “pre-existing conditions” left them vulnerable to being cancelled or subject to unaffordable policies are again at grave risk. Imagine being a cancer survivor, like Jeff Jeans, and told by your insurance company you no longer are covered. Women’s healthcare, millions of children, adults under age 26 who could stay covered under their parents’ health plans, the mentally ill, veterans, rural hospitals and low income individuals are all facing an unsettling future.

Like many Americans during the recession, I lost my job and the healthcare benefits that came with it. Facing unemployment and a partner who was self-employed, we simply could not afford the exorbitant premiums and, just like many Americans, gambled we would not get sick. Our health plan was simple. If one of us was involved in a major accident or came down with a serious illness, we would give up our life here and move to Canada. It felt like a drastic option, and one not available to most Americans. Thankfully, by the time I had my accident, we were covered under the Affordable Care Act.

Rather than fix some of the problems with Obamacare, Republicans have chosen to gut it completely, leaving millions of Americans in jeopardy.

Dismantling our health care system to get even with Obama, or tarnish his legacy, is a political game that will result in thousands of needless deaths of innocent Americans.

Wouldn’t it be preferable to repeal Donald Trump and the Republican Congress and replace them with more compassionate and empathetic voices?

John Rankine

3 COMMENTS

  1. Thank you John, and thank Jeff Jeans. Your support got me the help I needed in 2012-13. I sent Nancy an email.
    Adrienne

  2. Here’s the logic behind the Republicans’ “Avoidable Care Act.” Most poor people can’t afford insurance. Most poor people vote for Democrats. Poor people can’t vote against Republicans if they’re dead. To some, the Republicans are murderers. In their own view, “it’s strictly business.”

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