Keep our health coverage in place, affordable

LETTERS LETTERS@USATODAY.COM

What Americans want is for their health care

needs to be fully met at an affordable cost. Simply having freedom to access insurance is clearly not enough. Plans must cover essential services, including those that are preventative in nature. People with pre-existing conditions must be protected. Those of limited means must be helped to secure the deserved coverage. Obviously, government must play a role in effecting this scenario. Just how much health care pain is the Republican Party prepared to inflict? The Obamacare replacement plans they prepared to date suggest no compassion for those who will surely suffer greatly if those plans indeed become law. Mary F. Warren Wheaton, Ill.

I desperately hope that our senators will

protect and strengthen the Affordable Care Act; not replace it with the House’s American Health Care Act, which is not a health care bill but a tax cut for corporations and the extremely wealthy. If the ACA is repealed, the government will end up spending more money on the consequences of people not having health insurance. Trumpcare is an attempt to cut costs on paper while increasing actual health care costs.

My husband, like 23 million others, will lose health coverage by 2021 if the ACA is repealed. He is mentally ill and depends on the care of his doctors and medications that have helped so much in improving his condition.

I also know of people who could lose their lives should the ACA be repealed. There are cancer patients whose condition was discovered during routine examination obtained through Washington’s Medicaid expansion coverage. Without Medicaid expansion, people could be dead now; Obamacare has saved lives. But because cancer treatment is ongoing, the repeal of the ACA could lead to death.

Please, fight as hard as you can to keep the ACA coverage in place for my husband, for cancer patients and for the millions who have similar stories. It would be a crime against a very vulnerable segment of our population to deny them care.

I fervently hope that our senators vote no on Trumpcare — the AHCA. It will mean so much to millions of Americans. Megan McInnis Issaquah, Wash.

While Sen. Pat Toomey makes an important

point about the continued growth of Medicaid, his column “Senate GOP health bill preserved Medicaid” only tells part of the story and misleads readers by disregarding important facts.

First, health care costs are rising faster than inflation. This is a problem, but it isn’t one caused by Medicaid and can’t be solved by capping the program. Medicaid is an exceptionally efficient payer of services; much more cost-efficient than private insurance. Capping Medicaid will hurt our most vulnerable citizens without addressing the underlying problem. I encourage Toomey to shift his focus to develop policies that actually address the problem of accelerated growth of health care costs, instead of artificially linking Medicaid payments to nominal gross domestic product. Second, the federal-state partnership allows for an incredible amount of flexibility for states to manage Medicaid. Shifting costs to the states may add some flexibility, but it isn’t necessary nor is it the key to sustainability of the program. When considering the Senate’s Better Care Reconciliation Act, we need to face the realities of limiting services and eliminating coverage. If Toomey was actually concerned about health care, he wouldn’t be promoting a massive tax cut for the wealthy by taking care away from millions of vulnerable Americans. Health care reform is necessary. If cost efficiency and high quality care are the goals, Congress should implement universal coverage. The BCRA is not the answer. Amy Houtrow, MD Pittsburgh