Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
With repeal in air, Wolf gives robust defense of health law
HARRISBURG >> Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf kept up pressure Wednesday to keep the 2010 federal health care law covering 1 millionplus Pennsylvanians, using his office to mount a vigorous public defense of it as efforts unfold in Congress to repeal it.
Wolf is in a prime position to help exert public pressure on Pennsylvania’s big delegation of Republicans in Congress. Only Texas and Florida send more Republicans to Congress than Pennsylvania’s 14, and only a couple of other Democratic governors hail from a state with a Republican congressional delegation of significant size.
Wolf’s administration has tried to make the case for the law in at least a half-dozen events in recent weeks, while Wolf’s public events on fighting Pennsylvania’s wave of heroin and prescription drug addiction often touch on the law’s crucial coverage of addiction treatment services. It also issued a 105-page report detailing the broad reach of the law’s coverage in Pennsylvania.
The latest event, on Wednesday, joined three of Wolf’s Cabinet secretaries with people who had their own story to tell about how the law known as Obamacare or the Affordable Care Act had changed their life.
“The medical bills were phenomenal,” said Carl Goulden of Littlestown, describing the aftermath of two major heart attacks he suffered several years ago that landed him in a coma. “The ACA protected me.”
Anna Trace, of Chambersburg, said she has felt protected by the law’s requirement that insurance companies cover those with pre-existing conditions, and that her daughter, stricken with multiple sclerosis, has gotten insurance under its Medicaid expansion.
Michael Simmons, of Willow Street, told how the law made health insurance more affordable for him through the Healthcare.gov marketplace, enabling him to quit his job and start his own businesses. Vini Portzline, of Harrisburg, said the addiction treatment available under the law’s Medicaid expansion extended the life of her son for at least two years, before he died of opioid addiction earlier this month.
The event in the Capitol rotunda came a few days after top U.S. House Republicans unveiled a rough sketch of a plan that would mean dramatic changes to the law.
Wolf administration officials say repeatedly highlighting the benefits of the law is driving up support for it.
“I think that everybody is doing their part, everyone’s saying, ‘stop and think about what’s going to happen,’” said Ted Dallas, Wolf’s secretary for the Department of Human Services. “This is not something you do for political reasons. This is a very serious thing. These are people’s lives, it’s their health, it’s their livelihood. A lot of people, if they don’t have health insurance, they can’t work.”
In the meantime, the advocates of the law are holding town hall events in Pennsylvania to discuss its benefits and are inviting Republican members of Congress to attend. So far, Republicans are not showing up or holding their own town halls in their districts, opting instead for telephone town halls.
Plans being developed by House Republicans would phase out the expansion of Medicaid, which made it available to millions of lowincome working adults, almost entirely financed by federal taxpayers.
Federal subsidies for people who qualify through online portals established by the law would be replaced by tax credits and health savings accounts.
“It’s really a lot of ideas that have been out there before and, for various reasons, haven’t been all that popular, haven’t been all that effective, and also ideas that tend, I think, to benefit folks who are a little bit more well off than folks who are in the Medicaid expansion,” Dallas said.
The cost to keep the Medicaid expansion — $4.5 billion in federal aid over the past year — is unaffordable to Pennsylvania, Dallas said.