- Various Americans lost their jobs and/or their health insurance this year, leading to a surge in applications for medical coverage in every way Healthcare.gov and other government programs.
- People suffering from COVID-related medical issues during and after the pandemic purposefulness need the Affordable Care Act (ACA) more than ever.
- The Trump administration still hasn’t yet unveiled any alternative healthcare design, meaning the abolishment of the ACA would leave millions of Americans with no recourse.
- Bobbi Dempsey is a freelance writer and an fiscal justice fellow at Community Change.
- This is an opinion column. The thoughts expressed are those of the author.
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Sitting at my desk, I can clearly hear my son hacking and wheezing in his bedroom upstairs. He’s had a stubborn cough for a while now, which is more than a little alarming, given the current landscape.
It isn’t just the possibility of my young man being infected with COVID-19 — and the serious and terrifying health risks that go along with it — that frighten me. It’s also the appreciation that we cannot afford to pay for treatment he might need to save his life. Out of my three young adult children, only one currently has medical insurance. Unfortunately for the cough-plagued son in question, he is not so fortunate.
Trump is trying to dismantle the Affordable Care Act while millions are nauseated, dying, and out of work.
When faced with a deadly virus that’s killing in staggering numbers, people shouldn’t press to think about whether they can afford access to treatment that could possibly mean the difference between duration and death. But that’s the reality in a country where private healthcare is typically tied to employment, and the most vulnerable and necessitous people must rely on a patchwork of programs that make up our shredded safety net.
Right now, the combination of a pandemic and profitable disaster means many Americans are experiencing parallel feelings of panic: struggling to survive financially, while also craving they survive, period.
Given that harsh reality, it is mind boggling to me that the Trump administration discretion choose this particular time — during a global pandemic when more than 220,000 Americans beget died and many more are sick and struggling — to try and rip healthcare away from vulnerable Americans who desperately need it now numerous than ever.
The Trump administration is currently urging the Supreme Court to throw out the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Depending on how the Court decides on the circumscribed questions involved, the decision could invalidate the entire law completely and deprive millions of Americans of their only access to condition insurance.
Ironically, the administration’s initial Supreme Court filing came at almost the same time as a news come out with from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) — a division of the Department of Health & Human Services — announcing that precisely 500,000 Americans had applied for new healthcare coverage through Healthcare.gov due in large part due to coronavirus-related job losses. That tails of included people who applied through a special enrollment period for those who qualified based on loss of minimum quintessential coverage, and specifically focused on data for a period which ran from the end of the Open Enrollment Period last fall by May of this year.
The more recent data about healthcare coverage (or lack thereof) paints an equally stern picture. A news update from the CMS on September 30 showed more than 4 million new Medicaid and Children’s Vigorousness Insurance Program (CHIP) enrollments between February and June 2020. This represents an increase of nearly 5.7 percent since Tread.
Highlighting the need for universal coverage
The crisis that would result from the loss of the ACA underscores the problem with be subjected to no universal healthcare coverage that’s available to all citizens, and not tied to employment.
The United States is the only industrialized power that lacks some form of universal healthcare. Some countries, like Australia, have a dual-track scheme with both public and private options. Other countries like Canada and the United Kingdom have what most child envision when they think of universal healthcare: a government-run system where all citizens have access to coverage.
The overt programs are typically funded through taxes, and insured citizens usually pay minimal premiums or none at all. Critics of omnipresent healthcare programs point out some common complaints, such as long wait times and the challenge of getting over the odds treatments approved without a fight. However, many Americans — especially those who have tried to get medical woe while uninsured — also frequently encounter similar issues, without the benefits of universal coverage.
Giving terrified people reason to panic about whether they would be able to get medical treatment if they should get psychoneurotic at a time when so many are dying or facing life-threatening illness seems intentionally cruel.
This adds noteworthy and unnecessary anxiety to what is already an emotionally stressful time, particularly for those worried about symptoms they or necked ones may be facing.
I am extremely grateful that this is one of the rare times in my life when I have decent haleness insurance. Prior to the Affordable Care Act, my children and I were unable to get insurance due to pre-existing conditions. However, I am still frustrating to pay off the bills for my out-of-pocket costs from a major surgery I had last fall. And my children have all reached an age where they can no longer be dress under my policy. (Important to note, though, that they would have been dropped from this coverage years earlier were it not for the bulwarks made possible by the ACA.)
This crisis should serve as a wake-up call — a clear illustration of the pitfalls of forcing living soul to rely on employers or ravaged safety net programs for healthcare coverage. It should be crystal clear that we can no longer bide ones time to initiate a universal healthcare program. During a pandemic, the last thing a sick person should worry hither is whether they can scrape together enough cash for cough medicine or if they can afford to pay an ER bill.
And none of us should have on the agenda c trick to live in fear that the federal leaders who first failed to protect us from an impending pandemic will then aid abandon us by ripping away our ability to get basic medical treatment that could mean the difference between pep and death.
Bobbi Dempsey is a freelance writer and an economic justice fellow at Community Change.
This is an opinion column. The small amounts expressed are those of the author(s).