On a day that fans of the Affordable Care Act (or Obamacare, because some people still don’t know they’re the same thing) ought to be celebrating the seventh anniversary of its enactment, many are on edge at possible votes that could officially end it and replace it with something less life-savey.
Area activists who have seen the law’s impacts gathered in Tarpon Springs Thursday, right outside one of Republican Gus Bilirakis’ district offices. Their aim, ostensibly, was to urge him to reconsider his position on Obamacare, which he has voted to repeal dozens of times. Some Republicans are starting to change their tune on the Affordable Care Act’s replacement, the deceptively named “Affordable Health Care Act.” Some oppose it because it because while it would still involve the government helping people not die, it would be to a lesser extent; other Republicans oppose it out of concern for their constituents. (There are far fewer in the latter group.)
As yet, it’s unclear whether Bilirakis will change his vote.
If he doesn’t act, say those in favor of keeping the Affordable Care Act, it would show a callousness on his part.
“If Bilirakis votes yes on the AHCA, he will have chosen to attack healthcare,” said Heather St. Amand of Organize Florida, the group that assembled the event outside Bilirakis’ office. “If Bilirakis refuses to take action on critical issues, particularly those impacting poor families and those led by women of color, he will have chosen to stand in the way of our families and our country’s good health and income security.”
Urgent care physician Paul Robinson, a member of the National Physicians Alliance, said through his work he has seen patients directly benefit from having healthcare that insurers couldn’t gouge them on or take away.
“If the AHCA passes, it will be a disaster for patients. I have seen people’s lives improve after the passage of the Affordable Care Act… Prior to the passage of Obamacare, people did not have insurance because they felt they couldn’t afford it,” he said. “I saw those same patients obtain insurance under Obamacare, and then get the diagnostic tests and the care that they needed.”
Its prospective replacement, he said, takes healthcare out of the hands of people that need it the most while giving tax breaks to the ultra-rich.
Brenda Williams said she might not be alive today if it wasn’t for the ACA.
“I survived cancer because of Obamacare,” she said. “I am evidence that Obamacare works for working adults whose salary will not and cannot pay for the medical help we need.”
Calling the replacement “reckless and callous,” Williams ran through a litany of possible impacts of its repeal, including how it could cause many young adults to get kicked off their parents’ insurance plans, make medications unaffordable to people who need them most and cost millions of people their ability to have periodical preventative health screenings that are currently helping millions detect diseases while they’re still treatable. That means more people might not be diagnosed until cancer has grown to the point where it’s exorbitantly expensive to treat or can’t be treated at all.
“Ask yourself: what if it were you or your family member who, through no fault of your own, had a condition like mine, where you might die if you cannot afford getting medical treatment or prescriptions?”said Ace Williams, who said he had no access to treatment for a chronic condition before the Affordable Care Act. “Why is Bilirakis so willing to take away millions of Americans’ healthcare? To make the rich richer? To build a wall?”
This article appears in Mar 23-30, 2017.
