Last week, Republicans offered their take on a new health care plan in order to keep their promise to “repeal and replace” the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Despite criticism from both sides of the political aisle, many Republicans in the House of Representatives zealously pushed their plan through as quickly as possible, with two House committees approving it last Thursday and votes from two more committees coming up this week.
Just following the news back and forth, I felt confused. Some Republicans called the GOP-backed plan “Obamacare Lite,” while others decried it for stripping down too much. I knew the basics of former President Barack Obama’s health care law, but I still needed some concrete facts: What exactly is this law that Republicans are so excited to dismantle?
Signed into law by Obama in 2010, the Affordable Care Act, sometimes called Obamacare, made several key changes to our previous system. Here’s an extremely brief run-down of some of the law’s features: It ensured companies couldn’t deny people coverage due to preexisting conditions, allowed children to stay on their parents’ plans until they turned 26 and mandated that all Americans buy insurance, unless insured by Medicare, Medicaid or other programs, or they’d face a penalty.
What’s more, the Affordable Care Act made insurers cover contraceptives, maternity care and preventive services, including mammograms, at no cost to the people they benefited. Let me state that more plainly. The law made it easier to access affordable women’s health care.
Naturally, hearing that Republicans are about to wipe away a law expanding access to women’s health care and coverage has made me angry. The good news is this: As of now, in its first instantiation, the GOP-backed plan will not take away maternity care or contraception. As explained by NPR, “Because (the Republican plan) was a reconciliation bill, it could cover fiscal-related topics only. It couldn’t get into many of the particulars of what people’s coverage will look like, meaning some things won’t change. The essential health benefits set out in Obamacare — a list of 10 types of services that all plans must cover — do not change for other policies.”
The accessibility of this coverage, however, might not stay this way. On the same Thursday the GOP bill was pushed through two House committees, Democratic Rep. Mike Doyle of Pennsylvania asked Republican Rep. John Shimkus of Illinois which parts of Obamacare he took issue with in terms of its health care plan requirements. Fingers crossed for a rational reply, right?
Wrong (though I’m not sure who expects rationality from politics anymore). In response, Shimkus asked, “What about men having to purchase prenatal care?”
Ah, yes. Positively brilliant. Because men clearly lack the necessary anatomic features to birth children, they can’t possibly be held fiscally responsible for the care required to have those babies birthed. One more problem: Health care plans just don’t function this way. Everyone pays for all types of coverage, even the ones they won’t necessarily use, because in a health care system, the healthy pay for the coverage of the sick. And from year to year, we never know the group into which we’ll fall. Even though this is what some Republicans want — to be able to pick and choose the exact services we want in personalized insurance plans — it is simply impossible to succeed on a grand scale.
But just for a moment, let us envision an American health care system that somehow had this capability to cover every individual with his or her own individual plan, tailored exactly to his or her known, unknown, future and possible illnesses. Can someone please explain to Shimkus how men might still, I don’t know, play a role in reproduction?
Mia Gettenberg is a UF criminology and law and philosophy junior. Her column appears on Mondays.
