On Jan. 13, a week before taking office, President-elect Donald Trump tweeted out that "the Unaffordable Care Act will soon be history!" But almost two months later, progress remains slow on repealing the Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as Obamacare.
Republicans in the House of Representatives, led by Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wisc., introduced a replacement plan earlier this month called the American Health Care Act. Many Republicans, including Ohio Gov. John Kasich, did not want the ACA repealed until a replacement plan was ready to go.
Kasich's concern — that Ohioans who had joined Medicaid under the ACA would lose their coverage — was shared by Athens County Democratic Party Chair John Haseley.
"The single greatest concern (about the AHCA) is what it would do to Ohioans relying on it for health coverage," Haseley said. "In the recent report from Policy Matters Ohio, analysis shows that Ohio will be forced to abandon its Medicaid expansion, and 700,000 people could lose their coverage overnight."
A report earlier this week from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said the plan would "reduce federal deficits by $337 billion over the 2017-2026 period." Those savings would be achieved by reducing Medicaid spending. The report also added that "14 million more people would be uninsured under (the AHCA) than under current law" by 2018. That number could rise to 24 million by 2026.
"It would be a disaster for Ohioans and our society," Haseley said.
In his most recent proposed budget, Kasich kept the Medicaid expansion under the assumption that federal funding for Medicaid would remain in place, either under the ACA or a new Republican plan.
"The (AHCA) would throw Ohio's budget completely out of whack," Haseley said. "Local governments have been suffering through cuts from Kasich's budget ... and this would create a bigger hole in the funding."
House Republicans originally released details of the bill to the public on March 6. According to the House Republicans, the AHCA will keep some parts of Obamacare, such as allowing children to stay on their parents' healthcare plan until age 26 and barring health insurers from denying coverage to patients with pre-existing conditions. But progress has been slow.
"It can't be done in two weeks, or two months," Pete Couladis, the Athens County Republican Party chair, said. "I don't know if the president understood that when he said 'I'm going to repeal Obamacare.' It's more complicated than that. It can't be resolved in one vote."
Couladis said he spoke with Rep. Bill Johnson, R-Marietta, on a conference call last week about passing the bill through Congress. Johnson told Couladis that rules in the Senate and the Republicans' inability to obtain 60 percent of the vote will obstruct efforts to pass the bill. Couladis said Medicaid remained a difficult program to set in place.
"People who have drug addiction issues and health problems that are low-income, that's one thing," he said. "But there's a lot of middle class people on (Medicaid) that shouldn't be, and that's the problem: Where do you make the cutoff?"
Rep. Steve Stivers, R-Upper Arlington, has been taking calls from his constituents about the bill, which he supports.
"While I am still going through the bill and monitoring any changes that are being made during the legislative process, I believe this is an important first step to affordable access to health care," Stivers said in a statement.
Some of those calls come from 15th District Truth Team, a group organized by the Ohio Democratic Party to push back against Republican legislation in Washington.
"It's a group of concerned citizens weighing in and expressing their concern with Stivers and (Sen. Rob) Portman," Haseley said. "It's impressive the amount of time and energy that these people, who also work for a living, put into influencing policy."
