More deaths?

Regarding “The face of ACA” (Page A16, Friday), when the Supreme Court ruled on the legality of the Affordable Care Act in June 2012, it gave each state the right to choose whether to implement the portion of the law that expanded Medicaid coverage.

The Texas Legislature, along with several other GOP-led states, chose not to expand Medicaid and to deny government-paid health insurance to millions of Americans. Even though the Medicaid expansion would benefit American families, provide financial support to hospitals and reduce property taxes, the legislators made a conscious decision to reject the billions of dollars in federal monies simply because of their political beliefs.

When hardworking Americans like Mark die, we can only wonder whether they would have been helped if Texas had expanded Medicaid.

There is no doubt, however, that Mark’s chances for living a longer life would have increased with health insurance. The legislators deprived Mark of that chance for a longer life simply because of their political ideology.

Our elected officials should not be working against the millions of Americans like Mark. They should be doing everything they can to remove barriers that prevent all of us from living healthy, productive lives.

The ACA was passed into law in 2010; how many Marks have died since then because they were denied health insurance by our legislators? Bill Meyer, Kingwood