How to Turn Your Friends & Family into #HealthCareVoters (by Jeneva Stone)
The Stone Family (Jeneva, Rob, Roger) after casting their ballots at a drop box in Maryland. [image description: A woman and two men, one a wheelchair user, pose in front of a State of Maryland Official Drop Box with the colorful logo of the Maryland State flag. The woman wears a blue “Health Care Voter” t-shirt and face mask. The young man in a wheelchair wears a Darth Vader face mask and holds a photo of his sibling. The other man wears an “Equality” face mask.]
With less than a week before the election, I’m sure you’ve cast your vote, or have a plan to vote. Health Care Voters are needed now more than ever with the recent appointment of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) is in jeopardy. If the ACA is overturned, 21.1 million people will lose their health care. Justice Barrett has a paper trail showing her opposition to the ACA, and is likely to vote to strike it down.
Our best defense is a good offense--a clear victory for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris (who, unlike the President, have a plan for health care), as well as electing a Democratic Senate. With Democrats in charge of the presidency and the legislative branch, we can pass legislation to protect and improve the ACA, regardless of what the Court decides.
What can you do? In these remaining days before the polls close, you can tell your health care story to your relatives, friends, and neighbors and convince them to vote for the ACA by voting for the Democrats, who have universally pledged to protect our care.
You can also share facts about the ACA, as the law has been the victim of a decade-long misinformation campaign. Most people know that the ACA offers these basic safeguards: protection for people with pre-existing conditions, no caps on annual or lifetime costs, and the ability to keep your children on your plan through the age of 26.
People need to know that these benefits apply not only to ACA marketplace plans, but to ALL insurance plans issued in the U.S.
The ACA also mandates 10 Essential Benefits to be covered by all health care plans issued in the U.S., which include the ACA marketplace, private, government, and employer-based plans. If the ACA is overturned, many insurers will opt out of these benefits:
Ambulatory patient services (outpatient care you get without being admitted to a hospital)
Hospitalization (like surgery and overnight stays)
Pregnancy, maternity, and newborn care (both before and after birth)
Mental health and substance use disorder services, including behavioral health treatment (this includes counseling and psychotherapy)
Prescription drugs
Rehabilitative and habilitative services and devices (services and devices to help people with injuries, disabilities, or chronic conditions gain or recover mental and physical skills)
Laboratory services
Preventive and wellness services and chronic disease management
Pediatric services, including oral and vision care
The ACA also helps both rural and urban hospitals stay open and maintain quality care standards. When people are struggling to make ends meet, if they can’t afford health insurance without a subsidy (or can’t get a federal subsidy, more on that below), they can’t pay their medical bills. Fewer people eligible for Medicaid also means fewer dollars to support the compassionate missions of hospital emergency rooms, where no one is turned away.
If the ACA is overturned, the Urban Institute projects that U.S. hospitals will face a $56 billion decrease in revenue, nationwide, and will have to absorb a $17.4 billion loss due to uncompensated care (i.e., people who can’t pay their bills because they don’t have health insurance, but get sick anyway). That’s going to put a lot of hospitals out of business.
In addition, Medicaid, particularly Medicaid expansion under the ACA, pays for school nursing for all children, as well as individualized nursing for children with complex medical needs and disabilities, and the physical, occupational, and speech therapies our children require. If Medicaid is cut, your child’s school nurse could disappear.
Do you, or people you love, live in one of the 12 states that have not yet accepted federal Medicaid expansion dollars? These states are Wyoming, South Dakota, Wisconsin, Kansas, Texas, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and Florida. Some of their citizens have been misinformed about how the ACA could have helped them purchase health care.
You can tell them that if a state refused to expand Medicaid, that state also passed on the attached money for federal subsidies that made ACA plans affordable for low and middle income people through the state insurance exchanges. The average federal subsidy for individuals who purchase their ACA plans through state marketplaces is $5,500--nothing to sneeze at.
If you live in one of these states, your governor may have blamed the Democrats for the “high cost” of ACA plans, while at the same time refusing subsidies the federal government was offering to help you. My nieces play hockey, and they’d call that a deke--a fake-out to block the opposing side.
Tell your friends and family that voting is an act of love--for you, your family, the nation, and, most likely, themselves.
[Note: Text of the ACA’s 10 Essential Health Benefits taken directly from www.healthcare.gov]
Jeneva Stone is the blog manager for Little Lobbyists, and Rob’s mom. She also writes poetry and creative nonfiction.