With momentum gathering behind the GOP-controlled Congress’s efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act, Gov. Charlie Baker is standing up for key patient protections in President Obama’s signature health care law and urging Congress to avoid moving so fast to scrap the law that it would disrupt insurance markets. Baker, a moderate Republican, wrote to House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy this week outlining his thoughts for how to “improve upon the goals” of the ACA, but stopped short of endorsing a full repeal of the health care law that was modeled on the plan put in place in Massachusetts in 2006 to expand access to coverage. The governor said giving states more flexibility to tailor their health care systems to the needs of its residents would be beneficial, but called the expansion of health coverage under the ACA and patient protections — including a ban on insurance denials for pre-existing conditions, the elimination of annual and lifetime limits, and the promotion of gender equity — “important provisions” of the law.
Health care advocates on Thursday described staving off a repeal of the Affordable Care Act as a “winnable battle,” urging Massachusetts residents to ask friends in other states to lobby their senators. Health Care For All Interim executive director Stephen Rosenfeld said 180,000 Massachusetts residents are insured “only because of subsidies and tax credits” available under the federal health care law, and another 300,000 people have benefited from Medicaid expansion. “That’s almost 500,000 people whose coverage is being threatened by this spectacle we’re viewing in Washington,” he said. Speakers at a State House rally pointed to the slim majority Republicans hold in the 100-member U.S. Senate, saying that three of the 52 Republicans could block a repeal effort by refusing to support it unless a clear and sufficient replacement were offered. “We must not give in to cynicism or pessimism,” said John McDonough, a professor of public health practice at the Harvard T.H. Chan school of Public Health. “We should understand this is a winnable battle if we stand up together.”
From State House News Service