This new healthcare overhaul bill in the senate is already deeply unpopular, but for anyone still unconvinced, I’d like to add my own story to the mix.
Bluntly put, if the ACA (Obamacare) had not passed, my family and I would have been financially devastated.
I was diagnosed with leukemia in April of 2009 when I was 23 years old. Without getting into the gory details, my treatments were long, complex, and expensive. Treatments lasted over five years. A single months care bill was over $200,000.
Because of Obamacare, I was able to stay on my fathers insurance until I was able to get a job with health benefits. Without that provision I would have been uninsured, and would have had to pay full price.
Because of Obamacare, insurence providers could no longer deny be healthcare because of a preexisting condition. Without that provision, I almost certainly would have lost my healthcare or would have had to pay exorbitant premiums I could not afford.
This new bill would roll back this progress, and, according to the CBO, put 22 million Americans out of insurence.
This isn’t just politics, or fiscal policy, or one ideology versus another.
This is people’s lives. My life. Your life. All of us.
Healthcare isn’t a special interest; everyone deserves a chance. While we can’t erase death, at least we can prevent people from constantly worrying about it for them and their loved ones. Society functions better when we can focus on other things.
This is America. We are better than this.