Debbie Mills and I spoke for about an hour about Obamacare. By the end of the conversation, it had moved from me interviewing her to her asking a few questions about what might change and whether the coverage she would sign up for in a few minutes would still be valid.
I ended up reassuring Mills that nothing would change for her coverage in 2017, and likely not 2018 — but that wasn’t a guarantee. I didn’t know what would happen either.
Our interview began to make her a bit nervous.
“You’re scaring me now on the insurance part,” she said. “I’m afraid now that the insurance is going to go away and we’re going to be up a creek.”
–Sarah Kliff
Why Obamacare Enrollees Voted for Trump
Image of Debbie Mills signing up for Obamacare that she recently ignorantly voted to destroy cropped from one in original article. Licensed under Fair Use.
“I’m afraid now that the insurance is going to go away and we’re going to be up a creek.”
Yeah, or she could just be up a creek anyway, since Obamacare neither insures against medical bankruptcy, nor guarantees access to medical care. (Or controls costs, but that’s a whole other can of worms.)
The ACA was a tough decision for liberal politicians. It would give more insurance to more people. It was also highly flawed and inadequate. It carried the huge risk of being labeled “government-run health care,” so future rate hikes and shitty coverage would be blamed on “Obamacare” (which mildly improved matters) instead of the insurance industry (where blame belongs). Ultimately liberals chose to get more people insured. They’ve paid a huge political penalty for that. Should they have let those people go uninsured? I can’t say. (They didn’t have the Senate votes for a more liberal plan.)
I don’t know how Republicans will handle this. If they pull back from the individual mandate, insurance companies are dead. If they stop requiring insurers to cover pre-existing conditions, voters will be furious. My guess is they remove the tax credits for low-income people. That’s an old classic for the GOP …