Pete sat back in his chair, trying to process the gravity of his situation. He was a hardworking man in his mid-50s, and active member of his community and church. How could someone like him end up in a situation like this? One trip to the hospital and his whole life had changed. He replayed the doctor’s words in his head: stage 4 lung cancer, brain tumor, 30 days to live. He would need chemotherapy and radiation once a week for 8 weeks, as well as surgery on his brain to remove the tumor. How was he supposed to pay for all of this? The insurance plan he’d purchased through his church was a joke, providing only the bare minimum, but he couldn’t afford anything better, especially not after being given such a damning diagnosis. The doctors told him to sign over his house, his car, his land. But what if he made it out of the hospital only to find himself homeless? What would he do then? His family told him to sign up for Obamacare while it’s still available, but he was a conservative, Godly Republican with very strong opinions about former president Obama. He waited for weeks, weighing his options, wasting the little bit of life he had left. The hospital would not treat him until he either got health insurance or signed away all of his earthly possessions. He was dying. Finally, after listening to his loved ones beg and plead with him, he applied for disability and Medicaid, for which he was denied. His only option left was Obamacare, which he promptly (although begrudgingly) signed up for. The man he so hated, the one he couldn’t wait to vote out of office, was saving his life. Meanwhile, the main that Pete had cheered for and voted for was doing everything in his power to take away Pete’s only lifeline.

  Throughout his candidacy and the beginning of his presidency, one of Donald Trump’s biggest selling points was his promise “repeal and replace” Obamacare, also known as the Affordable Care Act. What is the Affordable Care Act, and what would its demise mean for the citizens of the United States?

 According to healthcare.gov, the Affordable Care Act is “the comprehensive health care reform law enacted in March 2010”. It is also commonly referred to as ACA, PPACA, and Obamacare. The Affordable Care Act had three main goals: to make affordable healthcare available to more people, to expand Medicaid to cover all adults with an income below 138% of the federal poverty level, and to support methods designed to lower the costs of healthcare in general. According to healthline.com, the Affordable Care Act was the largest change to American healthcare since the creation of Medicare and Medicaid. The Affordable Care Act increased the number of Americans with healthcare by 16.9 million. The Affordable Care Act included a large number of requirements for insurance companies. One of these requirements was that insurance providers could not deny coverage to people because of preexisting conditions, which unfortunately was something that insurance providers had previously been able to do. There was also no universal definition of “preexisting condition”, so insurance providers could use that term to describe as many health issues as they wanted. President Trump’s healthcare reform would make it more difficult for Americans with preexisting health conditions to get affordable healthcare by increasing premiums, adding surcharges, and allowing insurance providers to deny people coverage based on their medical history.

President Trump’s plan for healthcare, known as the American Health Care Act, would essentially undo much of what Obamacare has done. For example, according to Trumpcare.com, the American Health Care Act would allow insurance companies to raise premiums for people with preexisting conditions. A preexisting condition is a medical condition that started before a person’s health insurance went into effect. Some examples of preexisting conditions include lupus, diabetes, pregnancy, anxiety, and even conditions as minor as acne. 

America under the American Health Care Act would be very much like pre-Affordable Care Act America. The American Health Care Act could require people with preexisting conditions to pay a surcharge on top of their already raised premium. For example, someone with asthma could expect a 106% surcharge, which would be about $4,340. Someone with a major bipolar or depressive disorder could expect a 208% surcharge, or about $8,490. It is hard to say for sure exactly how much prices would increase under the American Health Care 

Act, because the GOP still has not finalized a version of the bill.

The American Health Care Act would hurt all Americans, not just those with preexisting conditions. According to an article from nytimes.com, the original version of the American Health Care Act would have left 22 million people without insurance. It also included large cuts to Medicaid, which covers 70 million people. That would be the equivalent of the combined populations of Texas, Florida, Georgia, New York state, South Carolina, and North Carolina being uninsured.

Many Americans believe that the Affordable Care Act did more harm than good, especially for Millennials. According to Timothy Doescher and Lillian Wolfensohn on thedailysignal.com, the Affordable Care Act increased the premiums of young Americans by up to 44 percent due to the 3-1 ratio. The 3-1 ratio means that older Americans can’t be charged more than three times the cost of a younger American’s healthcare. This causes older people to have what appears to be less expensive health insurance, but in reality the younger people still have to make up for what the elderly aren’t paying. 

The Affordable Care Act did away with lower-coverage plans, forcing young Americans to either buy more expensive plans with coverage that they don’t necessarily need or go without any health insurance at all. Without health insurance, they would pay a yearly fine and use the emergency room (which is paid for by America taxpayers) for any medical care they would need. The majority of people who depended on these low-coverage, low-cost plans were college-aged students who were no longer on their parents’ plans. Now, instead of being able to buy minimal coverage, they are forced to pay for excessive amounts of coverage if they want to continue to be insured. Most college-aged students work low paying or part-time jobs, and simply cannot afford such an expense.

An unexpected downside of the Affordable Care Act is the cutting of hours and wages by employers. The Affordable Care Act states that businesses with 50 or more full time employees must offer federally approved insurance packages to their employees. This is very costly, but if employers do not purchase insurance for their employees they can be fined up to $3,000 per uninsured employee. Rather than paying fines or providing healthcare to their employees, many employers cut their employees hours. Business owners would rather have 10 part-time workers than 5 full-time workers who they will be required to offer insurance to. 

Additionally, the Affordable Care Act has increased and will continue to increase the national debt. Currently, the national debt is about $21.47 trillion and counting. According to dailysignal.com, the Affordable Care Act will cost America about $1.207 trillion in the next 10 years, and will increase the national debt by $17 trillion over the next 75 years. The only way to pay for this would be to increase taxes, which is a responsibility that will fall upon today’s young Americans. 

Despite the few negative effects of the Affordable Care Act, many Americans view the law as having been successful. It was the first law of its kind, providing protection for people with preexisting conditions as well as those of a lower socioeconomic status. Millions of Americans who had previously been unable to afford healthcare were able to with the help of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Insurance providers were prevented from discriminating against Americans due to their health history or current health issues. This was life changing for many people, especially those with chronic illnesses. Regular treatments for lifelong ailments can be very expensive, but for some they are necessary. 

Under the Trump administration, those with preexisting health conditions are at risk once again. The American Health Care Act does not protect the sick or poor. Insurance providers will be able to discriminate against people based on their age, health, and socioeconomic status. According to CNN.com, Donald Trump himself referred to the first draft of his own healthcare bill as “mean”, and also stated that he would like to see a healthcare bill that was “generous, kind, and with heart”. If the president doesn’t fully support his own bill, how can the citizens of the United States of America be expected to?

The future of America’s healthcare system remains unclear. The GOP had yet to successfully release a healthcare reform bill that people actually want. Each version released as of yet has been a dud, either too different from the Affordable Care Act or too similar to it. As far as the Trump administration’s “repeal and replace” plan goes, those three words are about all that they have. There is no clear plan, at least not that the public knows of. People like Pete live every day in uncertainty, always wondering if today will be the day that Donald Trump will pull the plug on them. 
