S.F. and California healthier thanks to insurance reform
There is a lot of uncertainty about the future of Obamacare, with pledges by the president-elect and congressional Republicans to repeal it immediately. At this point, we don’t know what the outcome will be but we do know that our San Francisco values have not changed.
The benefits of expanding health care insurance touch our entire community. Thousands more San Franciscans now have a primary care doctor, access to preventive care and to San Francisco’s high-quality providers and hospitals. Data show improvements since passage of the Affordable Care Act:
Fewer San Franciscans are delaying needed care.
More San Franciscans assess their own health as good or better.
Health care reform is an investment in our friends, neighbors and families that is consistent with San Francisco’s history and commitment to everyone who lives here.
The expansion of Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act created a pathway for an additional 4 million of California’s lowest income residents to access health insurance through California’s Medicaid program, known as Medi-Cal. San Francisco’s Human Services Agency enrolled an additional 95,000 residents, bringing our Medi-Cal membership to 200,000, which means that about a quarter of San Franciscans are now covered by Medi-Cal. We are a healthier city as a result.
Statewide, another 1.4 million Californians have purchased insurance through our Covered California health exchange marketplace, including 40,000 San Franciscans. The vast majority who enroll through the exchange qualify for federal financial help to pay their health insurance premiums and receive subsidies to reduce deductibles.
San Francisco is also helping more people afford Covered California, when the federal individual subsidies are not enough.
Today, the federal cost of insuring low-income Californians translates to a monthly amount of $330 per person. It is difficult to comprehend how anyone could look at this number and conclude that it represents “out-of-control costs,” as some have characterized the Affordable Care Act. To the contrary, these costs seem quite reasonable compared with expenses local and state government bore without the Affordable Care Act for medical interventions and treatment required when people go without regular checkups and chronic disease management. Not to mention the human suffering that would result if the new health coverage were withdrawn.
No congressional proposals to replace Obamacare will improve our health care system if they threaten to have our most vulnerable citizens revert to going without insurance, and doing without routine care in order to pay for food, housing and other basic needs.
People have come to depend on these programs for affordable health services, including primary and emergency care, mental health treatment and dental care. Our Department of Public Health’s hospitals and community clinics have been bolstered by the Affordable Care Act’s funding to the tune of $125 million per year to increase capacity and improve quality.
The good news is: Health reform worked in California. The Affordable Care Act has made our city healthier and strengthened our social safety net. We are dedicated to maintaining those gains.