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Roy Hitchings of Camden is the retired CEO of Pen Bay Medical Center.
Former Vice President Joe Biden has clearly endorsed the concept that all residents of the U.S. should have access to quality, affordable health care as a basic human right. He believes that an improved form of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) should be the bedrock of accomplishing that goal. He has endorsed the concept of the “public option” where individuals and their families can choose to stay in their private insurance or sign up for a Medicare-type plan.
Biden is clear and transparent about his health care plan and how to pay for it. Donald Trump and his Republican Party are not. In fact, Trump has told us for the last four years that he has a better plan. So where is it? Nowhere, because it does not exist.
Trump’s goal is to tear apart the current system, but he has not come up with a viable alternative. He will take away healthcare coverage for more than 20 million Americans, many of whom lost their insurance when they lost their jobs due to COVID-19.
In 2019, an estimated 29.2 million Americans did not have health insurance. If Trump is reelected and the ACA is gone, that number will increase to more than 49.2 million, or about 15 percent of the U.S. population.
So what else is at stake if Trump is successful in wrecking the ACA? According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, a highly respected, non-biased source, “If all or most of the ACA is struck down, many of the these provisions could be eliminated.” Here is what will be lost: Eligibility for insurance for more than 50 million people with pre-existing conditions (which now includes a positive COVID-19 test). No cost preventative care like annual physicals, wellness checks and vaccines. Caps on lifetime and annual out-of-pocket costs. Children no longer covered on your insurance plan till age 26. Mental health and substance abuse coverage. Insurance premium subsidies for low and modest income people.
The current pandemic has clearly shown that access to quality care for everyone is in our personal and national best interest. We now understand that our personal health and economic well-being are greatly affected by the health or sickness of our neighbors and our communities.
The number of pandemic deaths during the Trump administration is more than 200,000. Compare that with the 47,434 deaths in the Vietnam War or 33,739 in the Korean War. According to Johns Hopkins University, the number of pandemic deaths per 100,000 people in the U.S. is 63. Canada, our nearest neighbor, is 25, Germany 11, France 48 and Ireland 37.
The Biden health care plan and its leaders could have saved tens of thousands of U.S. lives if it had been in place when this pandemic started.
Your vote is critical in deciding whether millions of Americans have access to quality, affordable care and how well prepared this country is for the next pandemic.