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Letter to the Editor - On the Affordable Care Act

Letter submitted to the Columbus Dispatch.

Peggy O’Brien, in her letter, April 7th, clearly demonstrates, and perpetuates, a problematic fact of modern political life.  If you repeat a lie often enough, and inject a little paranoia, people will believe it.  Unfortunately most of us don’t bother to check the facts when the lie is told with authority.  But I don’t really blame her.  She has probably heard the lies often enough that she believes them.

She suggests that the Affordable Care Act, (ObamaCare), “cedes control of the health-care system to the federal government” and adds “It takes personal doctor and patient health-care decisions and places them in the hands of the federal government.”

Under the ACA hospitals are still privately owned, doctors are still independent business people, and insurance companies are still run by their stockholders.  Decisions about health-care are still made by the patient with the advice of their doctor.

Yes the ACA does impose rules that further protect all of us from the whims of the ‘private sector,’ just as there are rules to insure we have safe drinking water and food.  Insurance companies must now allow children, up to age 26, to remain on their parents policies.  Women can no longer be charged more than men for the same coverage.  Premiums cannot be exorbitantly raised without justification.  And in less than two years they will no longer be allowed to refuse coverage if you have a pre-existing condition.  In fairness the insurance companies have been assured that everyone will buy health insurance.  No longer will those who can afford it be getting a free ride paid for by the rest of us.  Personal responsibility will be the law.  And those who truly can’t afford it will be given a subsidy.

If this is big government control, what took so long?

David T. Girves

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