With a federal court beginning to hear arguments in the Texas v. U.S. lawsuit — the latest in a series of attempts to bring down the Affordable Care Act — Toledo lawmakers, just over one thousand miles away, gathered outside the Lucas County Courthouse to condemn the potential elimination of the U.S. healthcare reform law.
“For the Republican Party to be trying to take the rug out of the Affordable Care Act, which is a lifeline to millions of people, is just so morally wrong. Forget the politics. Put that aside for a second. We have to have insurance that covers all of the American people for their healthcare,” U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D., Toledo) said.
Ruling on a lawsuit brought by 18 Republican-led state attorneys general and governors, a Texas judge in December found the entire Affordable Care Act to be unconstitutional — based on the effective elimination of a tax penalty used to enforce the act’s mandate that all Americans buy health insurance. With the change, the judge agreed, the mandate, and act, is entirely invalidated.
This week, a three-judge panel in New Orleans is expected to decide whether to overturn or uphold the ruling. If upheld, a challenge could be brought in the form of an appeal U.S. Supreme Court before the national election — and access to healthcare for millions could be affected.
Miss Kaptur, who voted for the Affordable Care Act, stressed the hard-fought battle occurring over the past century to try to provide coverage for the American people and condemned a moving backwards on healthcare access.
She said that even today, 75 percent of the bankruptcies in Toledo and occur because people can’t pay their health bills.
“They are bankrupted by their illness,” she said.
State Rep. Paula Hicks-Hudson (D., Toledo) also took to the podium on Tuesday to speak in favor of protecting the Affordable Care Act. She said that though Texas, where the original court case took place, “seems like it’s so far away,” the elimination of the Act would be “devastating to us in Ohio.”
“What it means to us in Lucas County, what it means in my district, 44, is that there will be so many people who are eligible now that won’t become eligible if this case moves forward,” Ms. Hicks-Hudson said.
In a statement, Miss Kaptur said 741,000 Ohioans would lose their health coverage if the act is eliminated.
Ms. Hicks-Hudson said that it is “a shame” that Lucas County has one of the highest rates in Ohio of maternal mortality among minority mothers and the highest rates of minority infant mortality.
“If we lose this ability for mothers and children to use this Affordable Care Act, we are creating more of a death sentence,” she said, citing that one half of the births in Ohio are covered by Medicaid.
Deb Miller, a Toledo resident and breast cancer survivor, said that during the period she was undergoing chemotherapy and radiation therapy, she didn’t have to worry about possibly losing her health insurance.
“The fact that I had health coverage helped me to recover, and knowing that I could depend on the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, was relieving,” Ms. Miller said. “I can’t comprehend through all that time and change what would have happened if I would have been denied health coverage because I survived breast cancer.”
Everyday, Ms. Miller still thinks about if the cancer comes back. She said that knowing that she has healthcare that doesn't discriminate is “comforting” to her. She said that lowering prices of prescription drugs and protecting people with pre-existing conditions should be “an easy bi-partisan win.”
“Some people have no control over their illnesses due to heredity and environmental conditions. They will be punished for something they have no control of if the Texas case passes,” she said. “No one wants to return to the days where a medical diagnosis such as cancer would be an automatic denial for health insurance.”
First Published July 9, 2019, 11:10 p.m.