Why Medical Providers and Patient Advocacy Groups Are Against The Republican Plan to Gut Health Care

Current Law Saves Lives and Saves Money

Conservative ideology cannot be challenged according to conservatives.  If they believe something is true it is true no matter what the facts and logic against it.  So if they believe Obamacare is a disaster it must be a disaster.  But if it is a disaster why are medical people and organizations like the American Heart Association fighting so valiantly to keep.  The WaPo tells why.

First of all by expanding insurance coverage it sharply reduced the free care that hospitals had to give to anyone showing up at the ER.

Hospitals who gave up some federal payments under the ACA in exchange for the promise of more insured patients have made a particularly impassioned case against the measure. Strange noted that Arizona froze Medicaid enrollment in 2009 and expanded the program at the end of 2013. The hospital’s bill for bad debt and charity care dropped from $25.9 million in 2014 to $8 million in 2016: even though it paid $11.1 million to help pay for Medicaid expansion last year, it still ended up ahead.

But money is not the major thing.  Health is.

In contrast to the original fight to pass the ACA, the coalition of organizations pushing to preserve the law are broader than they were in the past. “Protect Patients First” encompasses most of the nation’s most influential provider and disease advocacy groups: AARP, American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, American Diabetes Association, American Heart Association, American Hospital Association, American Medical Association, Federation of American Hospitals, March of Dimes and American Nurses Association.

And what is going on?  Well here is the American Heart Association story.

Sue Nelson, vice president for federal advocacy at the American Heart Association, said the fact that more Americans are insured now has added an urgency to groups’ efforts compared with the pre-ACA days.

“We also have so much more to lose now,” Nelson said, citing a recent finding that the incidence of cardiac arrest significantly declined among middle-aged adults who got covered after the law’s passage.

For those who don’t know, cardiac arrest is a bad thing.  Your heart stops.  This is a bad thing.  You die.  Even Republican Senators know that is a bad thing.

So when it comes to health care policy, who you gonna trust?  A political hack or those groups mentioned above.  It ain't brain surgery to answer that.