About 15 years ago, I had a hernia surgically repaired. In the aftermath, it was, shall we say, sharply sensitive (translation: painful). But still, I didn’t spend a single night in the hospital.
That was due to years-long cutbacks in the health care industry, imposed by cost-conscious insurance companies that want to keep people out of hospitals whenever they can. Well, the hernia got fixed and I went home and I didn’t scream a whole lot, so I guess it was a good call.
But recently I wasn’t so lucky. Six days before Thanksgiving, I was in the emergency room at Lutheran Hospital in Wheat Ridge with a more painful problem: Because of scar tissue from past surgeries, my digestive tract was twisted, which can cut off your blood supply. It wasn’t even the first time: Last year, six days before Christmas (my timing always is impeccable), I was in the same ER and faced the same two paths: either the problem would resolve itself, or I’d have to once again go under the knife.
Lucky for me, I am insured. Sure, I have pre-existing conditions, but these days, under the Affordable Care Act, an obstruction in a body like mine is not an obstruction to treatment. What’s more, I am one of those lucky Americans who can afford my health insurance premiums. That means every procedure was covered: CAT scans, X-rays, barium tests, and the considerable cost of four days and nights in a hospital bed in a private room with intravenous feeds, blood draws and all the rest.
A doctor told me that Icould buy a nice new car for what that had cost; throw in surgery, which happily I didn’t have to have, and it’s more like a new house. But beyond the premiums that I faithfully pay every month, it’s not going to cost me a penny.
What are we going to do, though, if the Republicans who’ll soon run both houses of Congress keep their promise and dismantle Obamacare? Leave someone sick like I was, but without my resources, to suffer unbearable pain (believe me, mine was a 10 on the pain meter) and, perhaps, eventually die? That couldn’t happen in the United States of America, could it?
Sure, the Affordable Care Act is imperfect. Both economically and bureaucratically, it could stand some adjustments. But let’s keep our eye on the ball: The primary purpose of the law is to make health insurance accessible for all Americans, including those who used to be rejected by insurance companies for pre-existing conditions. It would be a sin to go backward.
Obamacare’s critics recently have seized on one specific statistic as ammunition to turn even more of the nation against this law. What it shows is, going into its second year, Obamacare has resulted in higher premiums. Yes, it has. But health insurance premiums have been going up for many years now, long before you ever even heard of Barack Obama, let alone his health care law. And the biggest truth? According to PricewaterhouseCoopers, which recently studied health care costs, the average premium hikes right now are lower than the annual averages before the Affordable Care Act took effect.
Yes, some of the arguments against Obamacare are sensible, even logical (at least to those who make them). But the fact is, many of the problems in American health care today were in the making long before Obamacare became law. That’s something its critics don’t like to admit.
Greg Dobbs of Evergreen was a correspondent for ABC News and HDNet television’s “World Report.”
