This month marks the sixth anniversary of the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. Since its passage in 2010, more than 20 million people have signed up for affordable health care through healthcare.gov.
My father, my mother, my two sisters and I were among the millions to finally have access to quality health care. Before the ACA, my parents couldn’t afford health care, and my sisters and I had coverage through the government-sponsored Medicare program for children. My parents are some of the hardest-working people I know: My dad owns a small business, and my mom has worked multiple jobs at a time and raised my two sisters and me as a stay-at-home mom.
Unfortunately, in America, my parents weren’t unique. It is astonishing that in the most advanced economy in the world, millions of working- and middle-class families like mine feared losing it all if someone got sick.
And while the ACA has helped millions of Americans, many Republicans in Congress and in our state government are trying to dismantle it.
In the years following the ACA’s passage, Florida’s Republican-led House of Representatives refused to accept billions of dollars in federal funds that would have expanded Medicaid for hundreds of thousands of Floridians.
And even though the federal government would pay for 90 percent of the cost of Medicaid expansion, Gov. Rick Scott, who recently endorsed Donald Trump for president, said the state couldn’t afford it — while simultaneously considering more than $1 billion in tax cuts to benefit big businesses.
Republicans have also directed the Florida Department of Health to bar federal health counselors from over 60 county health agencies. These counselors, known as “navigators,” help people enroll in insurance plans and get subsidies under Obamacare.
Without proposing a suitable replacement, Republicans in the U.S. House have tried and failed to repeal the Affordable Care Act more than 60 times.
Young people disproportionately benefit from the Affordable Care Act. Most students in their early 20s work low-income, temporary jobs, which rarely offer health insurance. Thanks to the ACA, students can stay on their parents’ insurance plans until they are 26.
Because of this, more than 5 million young adults have gained health coverage that allows free preventive services that keep us healthy, like HIV and cancer screenings, contraceptive counseling and birth control.
For the first time in our country’s history, more than 90 percent of Americans have health coverage.
I bet you know someone in your personal life who has benefited from the Affordable Care Act: a sibling who had a pre-existing condition like asthma or diabetes who can no longer be denied coverage, your mother who made too much for Medicaid but too little for private insurance, a friend who was charged more for her health care because she was a woman.
Call your legislators and tell them you support expanded funding for the Affordable Care Act in our state.
Jesse Fallen is a UF economics senior. He is also the president of UF College Democrats.
