President-elect Donald Trump and House and Senate Republicans are on a bullet train toward repealing the Obama administration’s centerpiece health care legislative accomplishment but are far from a quick consensus on what will replace it.
President-elect Donald Trump and House and Senate Republicans are on a bullet train toward repealing the Obama administration’s centerpiece health care legislative accomplishment but are far from a quick consensus on what will replace it.
Even those on the inside aren’t clear what repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act really means.
The ACA has strengths and weaknesses. Any attempted fix must protect key benefits and reduce overall costs without reducing access. People with pre-existing conditions, for example, must not be excluded from affordable coverage. Adult children should be allowed to stay on family plans until age 26.
And GOP lawmakers who want to eliminate the mandate that Americans buy insurance must recognize that this a linchpin of a comprehensive health care. It ensures a large enough pool of healthy people to keep overall prices manageable. And it decreases the effects of uncompensated care on the system.
Unless they can find a suitable option, the mandate can’t be jettisoned without also jettisoning millions of Americans from insurance coverage, and that is unacceptable.
There also is a risk for hospitals, which are legally required to treat patients whether they are insured or not. Uncertainty about what might come next also would send doctors, hospitals, insurers and patients into chaos. The Kaiser Family Foundation estimates that about 52 million Americans have medical conditions that could deny them insurance coverage without the current health care law’s protection.
The GOP must not rush to repeal a law that has, overall, improved our health care system without a replacement that meets these basic standards.
The way to fix the Affordable Care Act is not to reject it outright, but to focus on ways to better spread the risk. Among other things, that means attracting more healthy Americans, finding ways to address escalating drug costs and not balancing the costs on the backs of vulnerable Americans.
Trump and other Republican leaders should follow the basic health care oath: First, do no harm.
— The Dallas Morning News