Football players need Affordable Care Act, too

Discarding it would leave mark on NFL

Dak Prescott is among the fortunate ones. Alex Smith, too. If the horrific injuries they've suffered in the NFL lead to long-term physical ailments after their careers are done, they should be able to afford whatever comfort health care can provide.

For too many in the United States — even for some professional athletes — health care is an issue of affordability, not availability. Prescott was playing for US$31.4 million this season before suffering a compound ankle fracture. Smith returned this year from a compound leg break for a $16-million pay cheque.

But the majority of their teammates and opponents won't earn nearly as much — in their entire careers. They won't play as long, either. This was Prescott's fifth season; Smith's in his 16th. The average career for an NFL player is around three seasons. Those who don't make it that far also fail to get vested in the players' union. So they're nearly on their own if they suffer damage that lingers forever. And they will.

As DeMaurice Smith told a CBS News audience on the morning of the Super Bowl in 2017, “We have a 100 per cent injury rate in the National Football League. And so every player leaves the National Football League with a pre-existing condition.”

Smith, the executive director of the NFL Players Association, was responding to a question from then-Face the Nation host John Dickerson about Donald Trump's overtures to end the Obama administration's Affordable Care Act, whose most popular provision forbids insurers from refusing coverage or charging exorbitant rates to consumers with health problems from their past.

That was then. By Tuesday, Smith's concern should be a reality. On Monday night, the Senate confirmed Amy Coney Barrett, a favourite of social conservatives, to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a hero of progressives, on the Supreme Court. Barrett is anticipated to align with the high court's five other conservatives. One of the first major issues on which she could leave an imprint is the fate of the ACA, with the court projected to hear arguments as early as Nov. 10 on a lawsuit initiated by a coalition of Republican state attorneys general who want the law invalidated.

Ginsburg supported the ACA's constitutionality. Barrett in 2017 wrote a law review article criticizing a 2012 Supreme Court ruling upholding the ACA. The piece has prompted suspicion that she would tip the bench in favour of dismantling the law. Trump, who nominated Barrett, even told “60 Minutes” correspondent Lesley Stahl on Sunday's show that he hoped the Supreme Court would deal a death blow to the ACA, nicknamed Obamacare.

This is Exhibit A of why athletes should be political — and not just for events in their immediate view. Standing up for social causes is noble. Just as Black athletes advocating for racial justice this summer had profound resonance, so too would an athlete workforce standing up for the increased rights of labourers.

They shouldn't forget that they play for owners who have donated mostly to the very Republican politicians who backed the right-leaning imbalance Barrett is expected to bring to the court. Players should create their own political action committees or other organizations to financially back politicians who will protect them rather than do them harm.

“Every NFL player should be concerned if the ACA is overturned,” Smith told me this month.

If you've ever been to an NFL alumni gathering, or, worse yet, funeral, you can see why Smith is concerned — and why his membership should be even more. So many former players move slowly. They limp. They complain of this ailment and that.

And this year, NFL players — and college football players, who have little to no access to long-term insurance — got saddled with another potential malady that could stay with them into the future: COVID-19. An online report in September from JAMA Cardiology found that some athletes who contracted the virus later suffered inflammation of the heart muscle called myocarditis, a problem that can linger with some serious repercussions. That is in addition to what are being called long-haul ramifications of the infection, which can include breathing problems, fatigue and mental struggles.

NFL players do get healthcare coverage for the first five years following retirement. After that, they move to a health reimbursement account that takes care of expenses as long as the account is in the black.

U.S. college players are not, of course, immune from suffering debilitating injuries. But it's up to the individual universities to pick up the medical premiums for their athletes.

So, the ACA is a great salve for former football players — or, if a newly conservative court with Barrett tosses the law, a tremendous loss.

TOM PENNINGTON / GETTY IMAGES Although he was playing for US$31.4 million this season, Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott and his peers are never guaranteed a clean bill of health in playing football.