Opinion: I’m an emergency room doctor. Here’s what has me...

[Tennesseer]

Opinion: I’m an emergency room doctor. Here’s what has me worried if Trump comes back to power
Editor’s note: Rob Davidson is an emergency physician in Michigan and executive director of the Committee to Protect Health Care, an advocacy group of doctors committed to expanding health care access. The views expressed in this commentary are his own.

"I’m an emergency room doctor. The patients I treat suffer from a variety of ailments, from asthma and diabetes to heart conditions and poor circulation.”

Until 2010, when the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was signed into law, many of my patients were uninsured, which meant that serious illnesses often went untreated. That’s why, of all the alarming changes former President Donald Trump has threatened if he returns to America’s highest office, none scares me more than his pledge to do away with Obamacare.

In the rural country in Michigan where I’ve practiced medicine for more than 20 years, many of the patients I see are barely getting by financially. The most impoverished among them used to scrimp to pay for preventative care visits at the doctor’s office. They would struggle to pay for the prescription drugs they needed for even common and treatable ailments.

If the cost of an inhaler or insulin did not fit their budget that month, they might end up in the emergency room with completely preventable complications. Those same cash-strapped patients would often find themselves saddled with a massive bill because of that visit to the ER.

That finally started to change with the passage of the ACA, a life-changing bill that more patients I treat have enrolled in with each year since its enactment. Many can better manage their chronic disease because the ACA prohibits insurance corporations from denying coverage based on pre-existing conditions. A good number of my patients could end up uninsured again if Trump, as threatened, gets rid of the Affordable Care Act. That would have potentially devastating consequences.

Rest of article here:  Opinion: I’m an emergency room doctor. Here’s what has me worried if Trump comes back to power

[busymom]

During the time that the ACA has been in existence, I've lived in a state that has it, and a state that doesn't.  Let me say, in my personal experience, there is a HUGE improvement in the quality of care in a state that has it, compared to a state that won't allow a "DFL" program to exist in their state (take note, GOP).  I much prefer living in a state that at least tries to take care of their own residents, rather than a state that looks the other way when their very own neighbors are denied healthcare.  

[djAdvocate]

the ACA only does half the job.

the other half would be to have a ROBUST public option.

if Trump wins, we will go back to when America was "Great" for assholes like him, and terrible for the bottom 50%.