Ok, you’ve made it through nearly the entire holiday season addressing right-wingers and their Fox talking points at the dinner table. There’s only one holiday left — New Year’s. The popping of champagne corks might lead your conservative friends to pop off once again against liberals, Democrats, President Obama and their biggest target of the year: the Affordable Care Act. In anticipation of these bubbly-filled blowhards, here are some of this year’s effective pro-Affordable Care Act talking points for your New Year’s Eve:
No more pre-existing conditions
- The health insurance system before the Affordable Care Act was unsustainable. Insurance companies raised rates at will, denied coverage to people with pre-existing conditions like breast cancer, and ran real death panels.
- Now, health insurance companies will not be able to deny coverage to people with pre-existing conditions. And, the companies will be required to spend at least 80% of their revenue from premiums on actual healthcare coverage instead of overhead and profits, or you get a rebate!
No more ER tax
One conservative talking point has been that people with no health insurance can just get treated for free at the ER.
- But there’s no free lunch. The rest of us have been paying an “ER tax” of about $1100 per year, in increased premiums and increased hospital costs passed on to us. Having those uninsured people in the system will radically reduce or eliminate the ER tax.
No more lifetime cap
- In an age where many kids are diagnosed with ADHD or asthma and have to been on meds perhaps forever, the lifetime insurance coverage caps that existed before the ACA could literally have killed them later in life, when their coverage ran out. Under the ACA, those caps are gone.
No more waiting until it’s too late and too expensive
- Until now, many of the over 40 million uninsured Americans couldn’t afford to go to the doctor even when they got sick, let alone receive preventive care and screenings. Under the ACA, preventive screenings like colorectal cancer and blood pressure are free. This saves everyone money as problems are caught much earlier, often before they become catastrophic and much more expensive to treat.
No more website glitches
- It’s true, the Affordable Care Act’s federal website, healthcare.gov, initially had glitches and was overwhelmed by high demand. That’s in part because red state governors and legislators played politics with Americans’ health and refused to set up exchanges in their states.
- In states where the governors followed the law and set up exchanges, such as Kentucky, California and New York, healthcare enrollment has been spectacular.
- The healthcare.gov website was fixed in a matter of weeks, and millions of Americans have successfully signed up for health insurance.
- FedEx and UPS failed to meet the Christmas deadline for delivering many gifts, due to glitches and high demand. So shouldn’t FedEx and UPS be trashed 24-7 on the cable news networks, and repealed?
No more hypocrisy
- Republicans in Congress who voted and campaigned against affordable health care for the rest of America had their own gold-plated health insurance heavily subsidized by the rest of us.
- Likewise, many conservative voters who assailed the ACA are covered by Medicare and/or Social Security. They are selfishly trying to deny something to others that they themselves receive.
These are just some of the Affordable Care Act talking points that were used this year, and which you can use on New Year’s Eve. You might have some other good ones too. Good luck, and Happy New Year!
