New ACA repeal plan would harm Ohioans
Posted July 03, 2018 in Press Releases
A new plan to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA) would have devastating effects on health insurance coverage and put a staggering number of Ohioans’ health and financial security at risk.
This new plan, unveiled at the conservative Hoover Institution in Washington D.C., would end the Medicaid expansion that insures 650,000 in Ohio and eliminate the subsidies that help another 230,000 of modest income afford health insurance. It would end the protection against excessive cost of insurance for people with pre-existing health conditions and sale of inadequate insurance plans that don’t include coverage for things like mental health services, prescription drugs and/or maternity care. Experts estimated that a similar plan—the Cassidy-Graham bill of last September—would have left almost one in five non-elderly Americans uninsured, compared to just over one in ten today. Ultimately, more than 20 million could be hurt nationally as people drop their health insurance because of rising costs.
The plan would replace the flexible funding of the ACA with fixed-sum block grants that do not expand to address health crises like Ohio’s drug epidemic or change with the needs of an aging population. To minimize financial risk, states would likely eliminate health care for thousands or hundreds of thousands; reduce services; charge even the poorest families premiums and boost deductibles and copayments; and/or redirect federal funding from insuring people to other purposes, like reimbursing hospitals for uncompensated care.
Coming on the heels of the Trump Administration’s proposed rules to weaken protections for people with pre-existing conditions and its decision not to defend those ACA protections in court, the new plan makes clear that repealing the ACA remains at the top of the agenda for the Administration and some powerful conservative leaders.
All members of Ohio’s congressional delegation should reject both this latest repeal plan and the Administration’s efforts to undercut protections for pre-existing conditions. They should work on a bipartisan basis to build on the ACA by improving affordability and access to care for Ohioans.