The missing headlines about the Affordable Care Act
Published August 28, 2013
by Chris Fitzsimon, NC Policy Watch and NC SPIN panelist, August 27, 2013.
The Affordable Care Act is back in news lately. But most of the headlines have not been about the benefits offered by the law, the millions of people it has already helped, or the upcoming enrollment period for individual insurance plans, but the absurd battle inside the Republican Party to hold the federal government and the economic well-being of the country hostage to repeal it.
The far-right tea party wing of the GOP is insisting that Republicans force a shutdown of the federal government unless the ACA is defunded. North Carolina Republican Senator Richard Burr called that plan the “dumbest idea” he had ever heard of, promoting outage on the far right.
Many of Burr’s Republican colleagues in Congress are bowing to the pressure of those fringe elements that now dominate their party and are actually supporting a government shutdown or a refusal to raise the debt ceiling, which could have disastrous consequences for the economy.
All because they don’t like a health care law passed by Congress and signed by a president who was then comfortably reelected. The public might be divided over the Affordable Care Act, though support for the law increases when people hear more about what it actually does.
But regardless of what they think of the health care law, the American people don’t want social security checks frozen and national parks closed because a block of extremist politicians can’t seems to find any other way to punish the president they loathe and pander to their loud and extremist base.
There are other stories about the Affordable Care Act that don’t make the headlines as often as the tea party threat to our democracy, but they are just as important to people’s daily lives, if not more so.
Starting October 1, individuals and small businesses in North Carolina and across the country will have the chance to find health care coverage that fits their budgets through the health care marketplace established under the Affordable Care Act.
More than 1.2 million people in our state currently have no insurance even though almost a million of them have a full-time worker in the family.
Small businesses can use the marketplace too. So can people who currently have exorbitantly expensive or woefully inadequate plans. Tax credits make the premiums even lower for families that qualify.
States that have already announced their 2014 health care plans are seeing lower rates. Premiums in places like New York, California, Louisiana, and Connecticut are falling or are below predictions.
That’s just one part of the story that deserves more attention. Then there are the millions of people who have already been helped by the ACA. Three million young adults up to age 26 are currently covered on their parents’ health plan, 95,000 of them in North Carolina.
More than 539,000 children in the state with a pre-existing health condition can no longer be denied coverage. Next year the 4 million non elderly adults in North Carolina with a pre-existing condition will receive the same protections.
There are no longer lifetime caps on coverage thanks to the ACA and many preventive services must be provided with no copayment or cost sharing.
There is plenty more good the Affordable Act is doing for millions of people in North Carolina now and more good it will do next year, whether the General Assembly or the tea partiers like it or not.
It boils down to more health care coverage for more children and families that fits their budgets, and more help for small businesses and people with pre-existing conditions or special needs.
And yet for some reason a significant part of the Republican Party wants to literally shutdown government to make sure the help doesn’t reach the millions of people the politicians are supposed to represent.
The disconnect is staggering.
Maybe that’s the headline we need to see.
August 28, 2013 at 7:24 am
dj anderson says:
No they don't, and the checks won't be frozen. I stopped reading and started writing at those words meant to scare people.
Chris, you are scaring old people, disabled people right now for your political purposes by implying they aren't going to get that next check. Would you tell that to a sick old person who lives check to check? You just did. How can I not hold that against you, Chris? You want to scare dependent people.
President Obama said 2 years ago this month on TV that he couldn't "guarantee" that Social Security checks would go out in August, 2011. My 93yo maiden aunt fell to pieces and fretted for weeks. She wept with worry.
Of course it didn't happen, and would not have to happen. But what were my words worth compared to the president's words on TV? If you believe the SS checks are really, in truth, not going out, do another blog now about just that.
August 28, 2013 at 8:11 am
Richard Bunce says:
Read the Declaration of Independence and US Constitution and find that governments are instituted to protect citizens rights and with very limited powers. Now read Chris's usual ravings and see his vision of government as provider, regulator, outcome decider in every aspect of every citizens life.
If these government programs are so great they would not have to be mandatory and as usual the advocates for these programs are very charitable with other peoples money and cannot imagine how something could be accomplished without the heavy handed use of government coercive powers.
August 28, 2013 at 9:56 am
Norm Kelly says:
Socialism is a favorite topic for liberals. Most are not willing to admit that socialized medicine/single-payer plans/Obamacare actually is socialized medicine and that it is one more step toward a socialist country. It's hard to have an intelligent discussion with someone who is not willing to admit to facts. Liberals, and most politicians, don't like facts. But Obamacare actually is socialized medicine. So we'll start with this fact. Even if Chris doesn't agree, his opinion is trumped by facts.
So, Chris, since you are such a proponent of socialized medicine, and like to tell lies about people who don't like socialized medicine, how bout you do 1 simple thing, that NO LIBERAL in America has been willing to do so far. How bout you give us all examples, from around the world, where socialized medicine has actually made the country more stable (financially), improved medical care, cut costs for the average person, reduced waiting times for care (either in an emergency room, at the hospital, or getting into a doctors office to start with) and explain how companies across the country reducing hours for employees from 40 to 30 per week helps anyone's wallet.
After you get through giving us examples of how good socialism works, and specifically socialized medicine, you will probably convince whole bunches of people that your plan is right, we'll stop fighting implementation of Obamacare, and could possibly make public announcements of how wrong we were.
People who believe what is written in the constitution are routinely called extremists by lefties. I'm glad to be an extremist in this case. I wonder, though, why people who don't believe in the law or who don't believe in the constitution are not call extremists. Mr. Obama, for example, doesn't believe in DOMA, which was passed by congress and signed into law by POTUS. Yet Obama chose to ignore this law and went so far as to fight against it at SCOTUS. Eric Holder chose to ignore voter intimidation laws and let the NuBlakPantha Party off the hook. So, Chris, tell us about who ignores laws and gets away with it.
As for shutting down the federal government, that actually is NOT what some Republicans in congress are talking about. The plan, as has been discussed and made news headlines, is to fund all of government except Obamacare. So, once again, liberal scare tactics aimed at elderly & poor simply are that - scare tactics not found in truth.
Why do I bother writing so much when I know liberals simply skip right over the facts and continue to rely on emotions? Trying to convince someone who doesn't recognize a fact when they read it is like trying to push a wet rope up a hill using a rock.
August 28, 2013 at 12:20 pm
TP Wohlford says:
AT some point, the budget will be balance, and the debt eliminated. Just look at the City of Detroit for one example on how that can be accomplished. The City of Detroit hasn't had GOP leadership in my lifetime, so we can safely say that this is the Dem way.
August 28, 2013 at 11:36 pm
Johnny Hiott says:
The disaster known as "obamacare" has little to do with healthcare and everything to do with control. The imbiciles overseeing it will be deciding such things as who will NOT receive healthcare, who should be left to die, who will receive treatment that will kill them. If it's so great why did congress "again" chicken out and get themselves exempted ?
Why have unions been exempted ? Why are muslims exempted ? obamacare is illegal and has been from it's inception regardless of what the mis-named supreme court says. It is literally destroying what little is left of America's economy. (Provided you can even say what we have is an economy) It is totalitarian socialist control. Incidentally, socialism always leads to fascism and America is in great peril of that right now thanks to the likes of idiots like George "w" Bush (for giving us the illegal patriot act) and the mental midgit obama who is incapable of even speaking a sentence without a teleprompter !
August 29, 2013 at 12:44 am
Vicky Hutter says:
Excellent rebuttals TP, Norm, Richard and DJ! I concur with your comments based on facts and reality completely! Well said, gentlemen!
