Obamacare can be saved piece by piece

The Affordable Care Act should be revised into three different sections:

Coverage. Congress shouldn’t repeal and replace. The ACA needs an overhaul, but that will come only through bipartisanship. And the only way I foresee that happening is if the law is reworked piece by piece. There’s a lot of common ground on issues, such as pre-existing conditions. There’s also room to negotiate on possibly lowering the age of children being on their parents’ policies.

Accessibility. Allowing the working poor to purchase insurance across state lines is good. However, creating incentives for employers to skirt the law by hiring fewer people to be “technically” under the requirements is a loophole that some employers use and exploit. Thus, hurting our national economy, hurting families and possibly hurting their bottom line profits, if truth were told. The free market must be free, yet fair.

Payments. I was lucky to finally have health insurance in 2015 through 2016, but I had to drop it in 2017. Premiums, copays and deductibles skyrocketed. It was no longer affordable. Raising the Medicaid eligibility level to about $8,000 is long overdue. I hate the thought of possibly having to go on Medicaid. Yet, I may be forced to.

I confess, I don’t know all the solutions, but Congress will never come close to what people actually need in one voluminous act. I say, find a bipartisan, common ground and enact those items into law. But make sure there still remains a safety net for the neediest who fall through the cracks of technicalities. I was caught in a “technicality sandwich.” Too rich for one thing, but technically too poor for another. That shouldn’t happen in our republic.

We must get our leaders to forge a workable health care solution, not just a bunch of sentences, clauses and exemptions that takes a fleet of lawyers to understand. James Marples

Longview, Texas