Since the enactment of the Affordable Care Act, President Barack Obama’s signature health care law in March 2010, Republicans at all levels of government have made every effort to weaken and sabotage the law.
The Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives has voted a staggering 40 times to repeal some or all of the legislation. They have held these repeal votes despite the fact that the proposals stand no chance of passing the Democratic-held Senate or being approved by the president.
At the state level, many Republican governors have refused funds provided by the federal government under the act to expand Medicaid, the popular state-based program that provides health care to the poor. As of June, governors of 13 states, mostly in the South, had publicly stated their refusal to cooperate in the Medicaid expansion. Gov. Rick Scott of Florida initially refused these funds before he relented and agreed to the expansion in February under pressure from health care advocacy groups.
The latest Republican attempt to sabotage the Affordable Care Act relates to individuals known as health care “navigators.” These “navigators” are employed by community health organizations and other social service groups and are tasked with helping uninsured Americans find the best and most affordable health insurance possible.
Many of the people who will benefit the most from the Affordable Care Act have never had access to health insurance and therefore need the assistance of trained professionals to find appropriate and affordable coverage.
Republican state officials across the country have placed severe restrictions on these navigators. In Georgia, the state insurance commissioner issued a requirement that the navigators pass the same exam administered to insurance brokers, despite the fact that federal law clearly separates the two positions.
At least 16 states have issued some kind of regulation restricting the ability of the navigators to do their jobs and enroll individuals in new health insurance plans.
Gov. Scott’s administration recently joined in on the trend of attacking the health care navigators. A directive issued by the Florida Department of Health bans the outreach activities of navigators hired to help uninsured Florida residents sign up for health insurance.
A spokeswoman for the Florida Department of Health, Ashley Carr, wrote that “Navigators are not acting on behalf of the [Florida] Department of Health and this program has raised privacy concerns due to the consumer information that will be gathered for use in a federal database.”
Although much of the Republican opposition to the health care law stems from concerns about government intrusion, the concerns Florida officials have expressed about the creation of a federal health database are completely unfounded.
“Contrary to Gov. Scott’s statements, consumers will never be asked to provide their personal health information to the marketplace, whether through a navigator or not,” U.S. Department of Health & Human Services spokeswoman Joanne Peters told the Huffington Post. “There is no such database of American’s health information, and multiple independent fact checkers have debunked this claim.”
Ironically, by imposing these burdensome and harsh regulations on the navigators, these Republicans are engaging in the same kind of unnecessary government overreach they claim to oppose. The restrictions on navigators issued by the Scott administration represent a reflexive and harmful opposition to Obama’s policies, regardless of the benefits they provide to the people of Florida.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, nearly 3.8 million Floridians — about a quarter of the state’s population — are uninsured, giving Florida the third-highest rate of uninsured residents in the country. Florida would therefore be one of the states to benefit most from the services of the navigators.
Regardless of whether Republicans support the health insurance framework the Affordable Care Act creates, the role of these navigators is simply to help consumers find the best coverage for them. Gov. Scott and his fellow state-level Republicans should get past their strident and thoughtless opposition to the Affordable Care Act and focus instead on helping their constituents.
Elliot Levy is a UF political science and public relations junior. His column runs on Wednesdays. A version of this column ran on page 7 on 9/18/2013 under the headline "The latest Republican attempt at sabotage"
