The Affordable Care Act (commonly refered to as “Obamacare”) has made it possible for more than 20 million Americans to obtain health insurance.
The uninsured rate is currently the lowest it has ever been. Having health insurance saves lives — when people do not have insurance they often avoid seeking medical help and often avoid taking prescribed medications.
The ACA prevents insurance companies from refusing to offer insurance to individuals with “pre-existing conditions,” from cancelling insurance if the insured person develops an expensive medical condition and from charging women more than men for insurance premiums. This law also allows parents to keep their children on their plans until age 26, guarantees access to preventive health care for women, and reduces the cost of prescription drugs for seniors on the Medicare Part D plan.
Despite all of these benefits, Congressional Republicans, including Rep. Fred Upton, are racing to “repeal and replace” the Affordable Care Act. One of the Republican proposals to replace the ACA is a bill called the PatientCARE act, which Fred Upton has co-sponsored.
The nonpartisan Commonwealth Fund has done a comprehensive analysis of Upton’s bill, and reports that if it were adopted it would, in its first year of implementation, increase the number of uninsured individuals by 9 million, increase the federal deficit by $17 billion and increase health insurance and medical care costs for older adults and low-income individuals.
Upton’s bill would also eliminate mandated coverage of women’s preventive health services and would allow insurance companies to charge women higher rates than men.
Fred Upton should withdraw his sponsorship from this very destructive bill. Instead, he should look for ways to improve the Affordable Care Act.
He might begin by supporting legislation to introduce a public option into the insurance marketplace. If this proposal had not been blocked from the Affordable Care Act, health insurance premiums and deductibles would be much lower than they are.
Other important steps that Upton could take to lower the overall cost of health care are to vote for allowing medications to be imported from other developed countries and for allowing Medicare to negotiate lower prices for prescription drugs. The pharmaceutical companies are charging astronomically higher prices in the U.S. than they are in other developed nations. This needs to stop.
The Affordable Care Act has been enormously beneficial to all of us. It does not need to be repealed, it needs to be improved.
Congressman Upton could help make that happen, or he could continue to sponsor legislation that will have seriously negative effects on the health of our country.
Please urge him to stop sponsoring the PatientCARE bill and to work with his colleagues, Democrats and Republicans, to improve the Affordable Care Act.

LARRY FELDMAN
Lakeside