Nancy Pelosi, Democratic minority house speaker from California, has frequently been falsely quoted as saying "that we had to pass the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) in order to know what is in it." Ms. Pelosi actually stated "we had to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it away from the fog of controversy." Translation: Once the citizenry becomes more educated about all the comprehensive beneficial benefits in the bill, they will want to buy into it.
Twenty-plus million have enrolled to date. Yes, the better off among us were required to pay more for Obamacare to subsidize those with lower middle class incomes or below a certain threshold of the poverty line. If they were extremely poor, they could apply for Medicaid. Block grants in the replacement plan will shortcut the benefits that Obamacare provided.
The problem remains that half of our citizenry do not believe all Americans are entitled to healthcare. The Republican plan is to replace it with "Universal Access," which translates to everyone can buy it only if they can afford it. Obamacare could have been improved incrementally if Republicans were willing to challenge the pharmaceutical industry's inflated markups and other overpriced healthcare providers. Instead, they chose to protect them, and remained obedient to their wealthy beneficiaries' greed. The Veterans Affairs are able to negotiate pharmaceutical prices. Why not Medicare and Affordable Health Care? Corporatocracy rules to our demise. We cannot afford to sit back and allow the new administration to create havoc with our healthcare insurance.
Bill Clemens
Smyrna
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