View more of the Sun's opinion section
During the congressional debate over Affordable Care Act repeal, Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nev., committed both to opposing any bill that made Nevada worse off and not pulling the rug out from the hundreds of thousands of Nevadans who gained coverage through the ACA’s Medicaid expansion.
I’m battling stage 4 cancer. The last thing I need is to be battling my own U.S. senator as well. I was so relieved when Heller said he’d stand up for us. But I was devastated when he voted to repeal the ACA and let us all down.
Now, an emerging bipartisan effort to strengthen our health care system without taking people’s coverage away or gutting Medicaid offers Heller yet another chance to come through for Nevadans like me.
But the senator has instead signed onto a last-ditch attempt at ACA repeal, one that would cause many millions of people to lose coverage, raise costs for millions more, and deeply cut and cap Medicaid. I need to keep my health insurance to stay alive. This latest GOP boondoggle, like all the others, puts people with pre-existing conditions at risk again. Including me.
The proposal, released last week, would let states weaken protections for people like me with pre-existing conditions. States could allow insurers to impose annual and lifetime limits and set deductibles and co-payments without any limits, putting care out of reach for people with cancer and other health conditions who need costly treatments. They could also let insurers go back to excluding key services, like mental health and substance use treatment, that so many Nevadans rely on.
The bill would also slash federal funding for health coverage for Nevadans by nearly $640 million by 2026. It would eliminate the ACA Medicaid expansion, which covers more than 200,000 Nevadans, and eliminate tax credits that help nearly 90,000 moderate-income Nevadans afford marketplace coverage.
A far smaller “block grant” would replace both Medicaid expansion funding and marketplace subsidies temporarily before disappearing entirely in 2026. And the plan would also cap and deeply cut the rest of the Medicaid program just like previous Senate and House repeal bills, putting coverage at risk for many seniors, people with disabilities and kids here in Nevada.
Neither the block grant nor the cap would adjust — as Medicaid and marketplace subsidies do today — for public health emergencies like the opioid crisis or expensive new prescription drugs, leaving Nevada high and dry in the face of unexpected costs.
There’s just no way that the Cassidy-Graham repeal plan offers better health care for Nevadans. It shares the same flaws of every repeal bill so far. If Heller wants to keep his promise to the people of Nevada, he must drop his support for this harmful bill.
The public, experts across the political spectrum and groups representing patients, hospitals, physicians, seniors, people with disabilities and others have forcefully and repeatedly rejected this misguided approach.
It’s time to abandon proposals that pull the rug out from under Nevadans and focus on bipartisan solutions that strengthen our health care system. Our lives should be more important than Heller’s rich donors.
Laura Packard is a Las Vegas digital/new media and communications strategist, Democratic political consultant, writer and small-business owner living with cancer.
Join the Discussion:
Check this out for a full explanation of our conversion to the LiveFyre commenting system and instructions on how to sign up for an account.
Full comments policy