According to congressional Republicans and right-wing media, the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, is a “train wreck.” Nonsense. What’s really going on is that hyper-partisans determined to thwart President Obama have been busy since the law’s inception laying dynamite on the tracks. Now they’re even threatening to blow up the government and the economy if they don’t get their way! These saboteurs hope to derail a reform that will make better and more affordable health care insurance available to almost all Americans, including 25-30 million who are currently uninsured.
So don’t trust the wannabe train wreckers for accurate information. Here are some highlights of what Obamacare actually provides:
- Young adults can stay on their parents’ plans until age 26
- Insurers can no longer deny coverage for pre-existing conditions, dump patients, or charge women higher premiums than men
- Free screening tests, immunizations, and preventive care
- Elimination of yearly caps and lifetime limits on insurance coverage
- Closing the “doughnut hole” that leaves seniors on the hook for prescription drug costs
- Making sure at least four out of five of your healthcare dollars go to ensuring your health, not insurance companies’ administrative costs or profits
- Tax credits for small businesses providing coverage for their employees
- Expansion of Medicaid for people making up to 133% more than the poverty level
- Subsidies to make healthcare insurance affordable for low- and middle-income earners
- Health exchanges in each state to make comparison shopping easier and to create large risk pools, thereby lowering the cost for those now at the mercy of buying individual or family plans on the open market
Obamacare will NOT force you to give up your current insurance policy, drive up medical costs, increase the deficit, put bureaucrats in charge of your healthcare decisions, or take away your freedom.
It WILL, however, make you free from anxiety should you get sick, have an accident, or lose or change jobs. Because Obamacare brings almost everyone under the protection of insurance, it also eliminates exorbitant costs of sole-resort, emergency-room care for the uninsured.
Let’s stop in their tracks those laying dynamite on the tracks. All aboard for affordable healthcare for all!
*
Obamacare goes into effect January 1, 2014. (Some key provisions are already bringing relief to millions!) Health care exchanges open October 1, 2013, with the enrollment period lasting through March 31, 2014.
For more information about Obamacare, the exchanges, how to sign up, costs, and your eligibility for subsidies, go to:
- In California: http://www.coveredca.com/
- Nationally: https://www.healthcare.gov/ or 1-800-318-2596
Contact your elective representatives to urge them to support Obamacare: http://www.usa.gov/Contact/Elected.shtml
Suggested reading for more in-depth understanding:
http://www.scholarsstrategynetwork.org/node/3747
Right on!!!!!