Obamacare Raised the Expectations of a Nation That Now Doesn’t Want to Go Back

As Obamacare repeal is on the table as the Republican fallback plan because they can’t punt their deathcare for tax cuts for the rich plan over the line, Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price claimed that insurers could just go back to how things were before Obamacare. Even if this were true, it would not be good news.

But it is not true.

Leslie Small writing at Fierce Health explained that the problem is that the ACA raised the expectations of the American people, “The problem is that the ACA irreversibly altered what Americans expect from the individual market, and insurers, like any type of company, are acutely aware of their customers’ shifting expectations. Now that ‘pre-existing conditions’ is an everyday term, insurers know they can’t return to cherry-picking healthy enrollees and denying coverage as common business practices.”

Republicans are caught between their seven years of trolling Obamacare and their unwillingness to legislate for the people of this country.

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They are trapped because Obamacare, for all of its lack of perfection, actually achieved the overarching goal of getting more Americans covered and forcing insurance companies to actually cover the things they promised they would cover. It threw in a lot of extras that people are used to now, like well woman visits and regulations over the healthcare industry.

The industry has grown since Obamacare, so now insurers don’t want to see it repealed.

Republicans keep behaving as if all they need to do is troll Obamacare, because they can’t lead. They don’t have “ideas” to make Obamacare better, because their function in Congress is not to legislate for the people, but to get power however they can, even if it means closing their eyes as their country is under attack by a hostile foreign power… All so they can give tax cuts to rich people, while planning to kill thousands of Americans.

Republican think they can scare Americans by talking about how some people couldn’t keep their doctor under Obamacare, as if having to use a different doctor is on par with a loved one dying because they lost insurance. It’s just not in the same realm.

Donald Trump promised he would immediately repeal and replace Obamacare, but Republicans don’t want to be held to that so it’s a wonder why they are still, still, still droning on about not keeping your doctor and how President Obama promised they could.

We get it. Obamacare was undermined and sabotaged, by Republicans, and now they oh so unsurprisingly find problems with it. What we do not see is Republicans being willing to govern with even a modicum of competency and responsibility.

The only Republicans showing any responsibility are those who are refusing to vote to repeal Obamacare right now. Because to do that would be the height of irresponsibility.

Republicans said they had a better way. They didn’t.

They tried to pass deathcare as healthcare multiple times. It failed.

Those who vote yes to repeal Obamacare when they just failed to replace it with anything do not deserve to be in office. People expect more, now. They want to live. They want healthcare for their sick kid and help with a nursing home for their elderly family members. They want people with disabilities to be able to get the help they need.

Americans now feel healthcare is a right.

Obamacare did that. This is Obamacare’s real legacy, and Republicans can never destroy it.

Sarah Jones

Listen to Sarah on the PoliticusUSA Pod on The Daily newsletter podcast here.

Sarah has been credentialed to cover President Barack Obama, then VP Joe Biden, 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, and exclusively interviewed Speaker Nancy Pelosi multiple times and exclusively covered her first home appearance after the first impeachment of then President Donald Trump.

Sarah is two-time Telly award winning video producer and a member of the Society of Professional Journalists.

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