Ever since the Affordable Care Act was passed under President Obama, Republicans in the government have been doing their best to get rid of it. Unfortunately for many, that may soon happen.
President Donald Trump promised that he would repeal and replace “Obamacare” as soon as possible when he took office. After the first, failed attempt at passing that bill in March, Republicans in the House voted to pass on a new version onto the Senate on May 4. The new bill, the American Health Care Act, has drawn stiff opposition, and the Senate has said they will write their own version of the bill, instead of voting on the House version.
The new bill would repeal most parts of the ACA, replacing them with new laws that many say could have disastrous consequences. So, what’s in the AHCA, and why are people so upset about it?
The AHCA would repeal many laws put into place by the ACA, like the requirement for large employers to provide insurance for their employees. It would also do away with the Medicaid expansion seen under Obama, including cutting federal spending on Medicaid. Having a gap in insurance for more than 63 days could also net patients a “late enrollment penalty”, up to 30 percent of their insurance premium price. Insurers would also be able to charge older patients much more than under the ACA. Among the many things critics have to say about the new bill, one of the most frequently mentioned is that the AHCA would allow insurance companies to deny or increase the cost of coverage for patients with pre-existing conditions, something that the ACA prohibited. Eliminating that regulation is enough to make many upset, but the real problem many people have with the bill is what it defines as a pre-existing condition. These conditions include; AIDS/HIV, acne, ADD, addiction, pregnancy, OCD, being transsexual, c-sections, and many more.
So far, the bill is still being revised in the Senate, but whatever comes out of that will surely be a huge change from healthcare under the ACA.