According to Her Campus’s recent election survey, almost 20 percent of collegiettes see health care as the most important issue our country faces right now. It’s a major topic, as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act—nicknamed “Obamacare”—just became law in March of 2010 under Obama’s presidency. Many of the changes this law implements won’t unfurl until 2014, so it’s a change in progress. You can read “A Collegiette’s Guide to Health care” to learn more about how this new law is revolutionizing the health care system. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) is on the line in the 2012 election, so it’s important to know where you stand on health care! Check out our breakdowns of the Republican and Democrat candidates’ stances on this issue:
The Obama-Biden Platform
When it comes to health care, the Obama platform is basically a resounding “keep doing what we’re doing.” The president only managed to get his controversial legislation enacted after years of fighting Congress (mainly the currently Republican-dominated House of Representatives) and a significant chunk of the American population. Now that the Affordable Care Act—Obama’s landmark health care law that is bringing a lot of changes over the next several years—is set to unfurl, Obama is able to show rather than tell his beliefs about the health care system and where it should be headed.
Already regulations are in effect that prevent insurance companies from setting limits on the amount they can spend on you in your lifetime (“lifetime limits”) and from denying coverage to individuals because they have a pre-existing condition such as asthma or diabetes. By Election Day, health care plans will be offering services such as screenings for blood pressure and cholesterol, HIV and other STD screenings and counseling services, mammograms, and even contraception—all at no extra cost to you. A College of William & Mary senior says, “I’m really happy about Obama’s health care plan because of its concern for women and the poor, of which I am both. I’ve already seen at least one change: my birth control pills became free this month when my health insurance renewed.”
Obamacare also allows individuals to stay on their parents’ health care plans until age 26. This is a big deal for college students and recent grads, who no longer have to worry about finding and paying for their own health insurance immediately following graduation. There’s now a buffer zone for us to get a job, get settled into our post-college lives, and take care of other necessities first. Once 26, however, all Americans are required to obtain health insurance. The ACA requires states to develop so-called Affordable Insurance Exchanges, systems in which insurance companies compete for your business and through which individuals can select the most thorough and affordable plans for themselves. If you fail to purchase insurance for yourself, you run the risk of paying a penalty, which increases steadily over the years (it starts at $95 in 2014, and by 2016 is $750). This is the individual mandate that was recently ruled constitutional by the Supreme Court. This has remained the most controversial component of Obamacare, because it is a tax, a tax that will raise $17 billion for the Treasury by 2019. According to this ReutersTV spot, because Obamacare is funded by “cuts in scheduled spending increases and new taxes”, which the Congressional budget office predicts will reduce the federal deficit by $118 billion over 10 years if enacted.
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The Romney-Ryan Platform
Mitt Romney is strongly opposing Obamacare as part of his political platform. If he wins the upcoming election, repealing the Affordable Care Act will be his first act. According to Mitt Romney’s campaign website, “On his first day in office, Mitt Romney will issue an executive order that paves the way for the federal government to issue Obamacare waivers to all fifty states. He will then work with Congress to repeal the full legislation as quickly as possible.”
What will he be putting in its place, though? His model is the Massachusetts-based health care law that he put in place while he served as governor of Massachusetts. It has been cheekily nicknamed Romneycare. It required residents to have health insurance or to “pay the state for the cost of providing them free care” in Massachusetts hospitals. For those who already had health insurance, nothing really changed and they were able to retain the plans they were already on. Obamacare is actually quite similar. The key difference is the scale: Obamacare deals with health insurance at the federal level, whereas Romney’s belief is that states should be able to develop and implement their own health care laws and health insurance markets. States should have the ability to come up with their own programs to provide insurance for their uninsured residents. This is very much in line with Republican ideology on states’ rights.
Romney still upholds some of the provisions of the ACA, such as putting systems in place to end discrimination against individuals with pre-existing conditions (things like cancer, diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, etc.), but with Obamacare repealed, Americans will be waiting for these positive changes to return as piecemeal laws under Romney’s administration. For collegiettes, this also means that we’ll have to wait for the return of some of our ACA-provided free preventative services—STD and cancer screenings, contraception, and counseling, to name a few. Romney will either have to push for legislation that reinstitutes these things, or states may pass their own laws requiring these services to be provided at no additional cost to us.
With the repeal of Obamacare, one of the first things that will happen is the $716 billion which Obama rerouted from Medicare (the federal health insurance program for the elderly) to fund the Affordable Care Act will be returned to Medicare. While Medicare isn’t a major concern for individuals under the age of 65, it’s important to note that Romney also may take steps to turn Medicare into a “voucher” system. This means that seniors would get a voucher to buy insurance from private companies. Instead of paying hospitals and doctors to provide Medicare services, Medicare would put the funds directly into the hands of the individuals, who would then do their own “insurance shopping,” so to speak. While it’s good that this would put Medicare on a tax-reducing budget, the problem is that the value of the voucher isn’t necessarily equal to what the actual cost of health care, which means the difference will most likely come out of people’s pockets.
Federal or State-Level Health Care?
This issue is relatively clean-cut. Obama will keep the ACA in place if reelected, and Romney will see it undone if elected, instead leaving it up to states to pass their own laws regarding health insurance for its residents.
Although many polls nationwide (check out this article from the Washington Post) have shown that Americans are skeptical of Obamacare as a whole, its specific components tend to meet with widespread approval. We like the idea of free STD screenings, mammograms, and FDA-approved contraception, we aren’t so thrilled about requiring people to pay a fine if they don’t have health insurance by 2014. If Romney wins the election and Obamacare gets repealed, then we only have to worry about these kind of fines if our home states institute a similar program.
While certainly a dicey issue, keep in mind that there are a number of other debates raging between these two presidential candidates. Whom you vote for should be based on a thorough investigation of all the issues and each man’s position on them. Check out more election 2012 coverage here!