With the death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and subsequent nomination of her successor, Amy Coney Barrett, there is a question on everybody’s mind: What happens to the Affordable Care Act? Moreover, what would happen if the ACA was suddenly repealed during a global pandemic? Reed Ableson weighed in on this matter in her recent article If The Supreme Court Ends Obamacare, Here’s What it Would Mean. Throughout the Article, Ableson presents several troubling, verifiable facts. Reading it reaffirmed my position that striking down the ACA without a viable replacement is dangerous, especially during an unprecedented global health crisis. 

Thousands march through the streets of Los Angeles to Protest President Donald Trump’s plan to end the Affordable Care Act (2017) Source: Reed Saxon, Twitter

Preexisting Conditions are a Concern 

According to Ableson, the ACA is the only safety net in place for people with preexisting conditions. Without it, she asserts that insurance companies can force these people to pay significantly higher premiums, or even disqualify them from coverage. This is even more unnerving when she goes on to say, “as many as 133 million Americans…have preexisting conditions.” It terrifies me to think that almost half of the country’s population could suddenly lose their access to healthcare during an infectious viral pandemic. Add to that the fact that the Center of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has said that we don’t know the long term effects of Covid19, and the situation gets even worse. Ableson speculates that a previous diagnosis of Covid19 could qualify as a preexisting condition. I believe that this is a valid concern given that according to Meghan Meyers, of MilitaryTimes.com, the military will not accept Coronavirus survivors. Ableson contends that without the ACA, these people will lose the ability to seek medical treatment. I hope that she is wrong, but without a viable replacement, I worry that repealing the ACA could be a disaster. 

Addiction Treatment Will Decline 

The war on drugs is over. We lost. We need to focus on mitigating its effects
Source: Getty

Throughout her article, Ableson communicates some well-founded concerns. Most of these concerns involve our country’s most vulnerable citizens. This is most noticeable when she discusses the implications of striking down the ACA, as it relates to those afflicted by opioid addiction. Ableson gives a bleak prediction of what their world would look like if the ACA would disappear.  She says, “roughly 800,000 people with opioid addiction are on Medicaid…most of whom became eligible for it through [The Affordable Care Act.]” She goes on to say that without the ACA, these people could be unable to seek treatment for their addiction. This prediction really hit home with me. I have long felt (and many experts agree) that the war on drugs has been a complete failure. It is time for us to destigmatize addiction and call it what it is: a disease. I worry that such a staggering number of people losing access to treatment could erase years of societal progress. 

Healthy Doesn’t Mean Safe 

One of the more troubling notions that Ableson broaches is the possibility of people losing their healthcare, even if they don’t have preexisting conditions. She estimates that as many as 21 million healthy people could lose their coverage if the ACA is repealed. Within this estimate, she includes people whose coverage comes through the Medicaid expansion and people that benefit from federal subsidies. I presume that this figure would be chilling at any time, but it horrifies me during a pandemic. Epidemiologists have repeatedly opined that the only way to safety reopen our country is through testing and tracing. I worry that people who lose their insurance would be unable to seek testing. If Ableson’s estimate is close, taking away the ACA could hinder our return to normalcy.  

Assuring that everybody has access to medicine shouldn’t be a question of politics; it should be a question of basic human decency. Ableson thinks that abolishing the Affordable Care Act would be detrimental to our society. If there is no plan for replacement legislation, I concur.