LAKE CITY, Fla. — Kathy Watson was anxious about her health coverage even before she woke up gasping for breath one day and drove herself to the emergency room with a flare-up in her heart condition.
After struggling for years without insurance, the 55-year-old former small-business owner — who has battled diabetes, high blood pressure and two cancers — credits Obamacare with saving her life.
Watson also voted for Donald Trump, believing the businessman would bring change. She dismissed his campaign pledges to scrap the Affordable Care Act as bluster.
Now, as she watches the new president push to kill the law that provided her with a critical lifeline, Watson finds herself among many Trump supporters who must reconcile their votes with worries about the future of their health care. Watson, a proud, salty woman who was uninsurable a few years ago, isn’t ready to renounce Trump. But she’s increasingly frustrated by his vague promises to replace Obamacare with something better. “I’ve been through enough,” Watson said recently, sitting on the patio outside her mobile home, down a sandy road in a rural corner of northern Florida. “I don’t want to go back.”
As one of millions of Americans who depend on the health care law’s protections, Watson embodies the political challenge Republicans face as they scramble to fulfill their pledge to repeal Obamacare without harming people like Watson, who helped fuel Trump’s unexpected victory.
Her story is also a cautionary tale for GOP leaders, whose promise to cut health care costs by scaling back insurance rules threatens to reopen the gaps that once left nearly 50 million Americans without coverage.
Like some 150 million Americans, she for years had a health plan offered by an employer. But in 2001, Watson’s husband had to quit after he was injured. The law office where she worked as a paralegal, like many small businesses, didn’t offer a health plan.
Passage of the Affordable Care Act finally offered some relief, thanks to a small temporary program created in 2011 for people like Watson who had been denied coverage.
She was able to get on a plan that ultimately cost $363 a month and is now cancer free. “I would have lost everything without that,” Watson said.
By then, Watson was well enough to get a job at a company that trained customer support staff for DirecTV. She quit the job at the end of last year after hurting herself working in her yard. This time, thanks to Obamacare, there was no gap for her to fall into. “I still can’t believe I can get this coverage,” she said.
But Watson is getting irritated by what she hears from the new president. “I’ll give it a little more time,” she said. “But I’m not really sure about Trump anymore.”
She said she’s ready to go to Washington to tell lawmakers not to roll back Obamacare. “Walk a mile in my shoes,” Watson said. “I never thought I’d have to go through all of this. I was working for an attorney. I was making good money. … I’m not here to get something for nothing. I just want to be healthy, pay my bills and go about my life.”