By Lydia Fiser
The New York Times called the House of Representative’s passing of the Affordable Health Care for America Act a “landmark” in achieving affordable universal health care.
While the Act may be a landmark, it’s not in the sense that the New York Times claims. Instead, it’s a landmark statement of who our government is committed to.
The bill mandates that all U.S. citizens must purchase insurance, and provides “affordability credits” for low-to moderate-income people to help offset some of the costs. A red flag should go off to any critically thinking citizen here. To mandate an entire country financially back an industry and penalize those who refuse to, solidifies our government’s commitment to big business.
Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich, who voted against the bill, broke it down this morning on Democracy Now!:
“It is a $70 billion giveaway to private insurance companies and locks in this system that’s the problem, not the solution… This bill doesn’t affectively moderate what they can charge for premiums, or co-pays or deductibles. It just says people have to have insurance. Well, insurance doesn’t necessarily equate to care and care comes at a cost.”
The bill also slipped in another government opinion between the lines: its view on abortion.
Section 222 of the Act:
Prohibits abortion services from being made part of essential benefits package. [It] prohibits federal funds from being used to pay for abortion (except in cases of rape, incest and to save the life of the woman). Only private premium dollars can be used to provide abortion coverage. Where abortion coverage is provided, funds for this purpose must be segregated from other funds, including affordability credits.
This is a step back for anyone who believes women’s bodies should be their own to control. It also places a higher burden on low-income, often minority, women who statistically make less money and thus will need to use the government subsidized affordability credits to be able to pay for the mandated health insurance.
This bill is far from the “sweeping reform” we need. We have to make our voices heard to our legislators that health care reform that still has corporate insurance companies’ interests at heart is no kind of reform. We need health care for everyone in this country no matter their economic or health standing and for every procedure to be able to be done safely. We need universal single-payer health care, and the only way to get that is to take the insurance companies out of the plan.
Tags: healthcare