Patty Kellner, MD, member of the Ohio Academy of Family Physicians Public Policy Committee from Cleveland, will be meeting with Senator Rob Portman in Washington, DC, on Wednesday, July 12, 2017, and plans to present Sen. Portman with a letter from the OAFP on Senate Republican efforts to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The letter thanks Sen. Portman for coming out in opposition to the Better Care Reconciliation Act (BCRA) as originally drafted and urges him to stand firm in rejecting any legislation that takes health care away from Ohio’s most vulnerable citizens.
The letter states, “A delegation of Ohio family physicians visited your Washington, DC, office on May 23 and spoke with your health aide about our concerns. Granted, there are numerous reforms that need to be implemented to improve our health care system so that individuals have access to meaningful and affordable health care coverage, but the House-passed American Health Care Act (AHCA) and the BCRA are not the answer and will cause harm to many of our patients.”
The letter goes on to say, “We were told in our meeting with your aide that you opposed the House version’s provisions on pre-existing conditions, loss of coverage to dependents under 26, and loss of Medicaid expansion. Analysis of the House version shows that 539,700 people in the state of Ohio would lose their health coverage under the AHCA and only slightly fewer under the BCRA. And, Ohioans on average would experience dramatically increased premiums under both acts —an average of a $990 increase in their annual premium by 2018. What will happen to those Ohioans who cannot pay for skyrocketing premiums or copayments and deductibles? In addition, both of these acts threaten the health security of people who have pre-existing conditions. In Ohio alone, 1,919,000 non-elderly adults have a declinable preexisting condition.”
“Neither of the proposals addresses the real-life challenges people have with health care. Both disguise discrimination as flexibility and make health care less accessible and more expensive for those who need it most. Unfortunately, the AHCA and BCRA lead Ohio down a path toward greater numbers of uninsured Ohioans, the dismantling of Medicaid that will severely limit substance abuse treatment at a time when Ohioans direly need treatment options, increased instability in our insurance markets, and higher costs for everyone.”
The letter concludes by encouraging bipartisan solutions that reach the ultimate goal of health care coverage for all. “It is important to Ohio’s family physicians that none of our patients lose access to care because they have lost adequate and affordable health insurance.”