A vote to repeal health care is a step backward

This week, Congress is scheduled to vote on a repeal of last year's health care reform law.

We think this is a mistake. We consider last year's Affordable Care Act to be one of the most significant and important legislative achievements in generations. It fulfills a longtime goal of ensuring that tens of millions of uninsured Americans will finally have access to more affordable coverage. The new law represents a first step toward limiting the growth of health care costs, and beyond that, it offers one of the most significant deficit-reduction packages ever passed by Congress.

Many provisions of the law are already helping millions of Americans. They include eliminating exclusions for pre-existing conditions for children, insuring dependents under the age of 26 and providing drug rebates and discounts for seniors.

We recognize that the law is not perfect, but as was the case with Medicare and Medicaid, improvements can and will be made. This, we believe, is where Congress should focus its energy – not on a political and time-consuming legislative exercise that is certain to fail.

A vote to repeal is a step backward. To illustrate that point and to show how important this bill is for all Americans, we offer our top 10 benefits still to come from last year's reforms.

1. According to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, repeal will increase the national deficit by $230 billion over the next 11 years and by $1.2 trillion over the next 20 years(1).

2. 32 million non-elderly Americans will have health care coverage by 2019, the year of full implementation.(2) Almost 24.3% of Colorado's non-elderly population, or about 1,001,388 citizens, will benefit from some level of health care coverage.(3)

3. The cost of uncompensated care for the uninsured – people seeking routine treatment at emergency rooms, for example – will decrease by 61%(4). With repeal, these costs will continue to be shifted to insured individuals and businesses.

4. The provision that ensures that children with pre-existing conditions are eligible for coverage will be extended to everyone else in the future.

5. Insurance companies will be required to spend at least 80 percent of premiums on health care.

6. Medicare's solvency will be extended for an additional 12 years, and measures to reduce waste in Medicare and Medicaid will be implemented.

7. Seniors in the Medicare Part D donut hole, who currently pay full drug costs between $2,830 and $6,440 annually, will get help in paying those costs.

8. New public databases and penalties to curb elder abuse will be implemented.

9. A $110 billion middle-class tax credit will help families pay for insurance.(5)

10. A small-business tax credit will help as many as 4 million small businesses in the United States – and 69,000 in Colorado(6). The credit could increase employee coverage by over 25%.(7)

Sources
(1) Douglas W. Elmendorf, director, Congressional Budget Office. Letter to Speaker Boehner, Jan. 6, 2011.
(2) Douglas W. Elmendorf, director, Congressional Budget Office. Letter to Speaker Boehner, Jan. 6, 2011.
(3) Karen Davenport and Sonia Sekhar, Unraveling Reform Would Leave Millions with Less Affordable Care, Center For American Progress, March 29, 2010.
(4) Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, America Under the Affordable Care Act, December 2010.
(5) Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash., The Spokesman-Review, Jan. 1, 2011.
(6) HealthReform.gov
(7) Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash., The Spokesman-Review, January 1, 2011.