After the Republican senators of the US presented the latest
version of their healthcare bill yesterday to replace the Affordable Care Act
(ACA) of 2010 or Obamacare launched by Barack Obama, a Democrat, seven years
ago, predecessor of the Republican US President Donald Trump, Obama has hit
back.
In his first detailed response in months on the controversy
over Obamacare and its replacement with Trumpcare or the Republican healthcare
act, a central campaign promise of Donald Trump, Obama has decimated the
Republican noise on a bill that is expected to leave millions of Americans out
of the US government mandated healthcare protection.
While presenting arguments in favour of Obamacare, Obama
writes in his Facebook post that the legislation has helped cover 90 per cent
Americans and companies cannot ask for more or deny insurance citing some
pre-existing health condition and has slowed down the pace of rising healthcare
costs, Obama has slammed the Republican version as a hastily arrived antithesis
to what Obamacare stands for.
He writes, citing objective analyses and the nonpartisan
Congressional Budget Office, “the legislation rushed through the House and the
Senate without public hearings or debate would do the opposite. It would raise
costs, reduce coverage, roll back protections, and ruin Medicaid as we know it”
while adding that though a significant step, “ACA was not perfect, nor could it
be the end of our efforts – and that if Republicans could put together a plan
that is demonstrably better than the improvements we made to our health care
system, that covers as many people at less cost, I would gladly and publicly
support it.”
Trump, during the campaign phase of the US presidential
polls, and even after his election, had raised hopes of a healthcare act to
replace Obamacare that would guarantee ‘universal healthcare’ but going by the
versions of the Republican healthcare bill so far, there has been a growing
consensus in the US that if implemented in the current form, the Republican
legislation would devoid millions of the much needed healthcare protection and
at the same time would increase healthcare cost for many and would ruin
Medicaid, a US government programme for financially weaker section that has
been in place for decades.
Obama writes that he hopes that even many Republicans who
fought for the ACA would see these concerns and would say no to the bill in
current form, “Thousands upon thousands of Americans, including Republicans,
threw themselves into that collective effort, not for political reasons, but
for intensely personal ones – a sick child, a parent lost to cancer, the memory
of medical bills that threatened to derail their dreams.”
And Obama is right. Within hours of the unveiling of the
Republican legislation, four conservative Republicans have come out to say that
they cannot support the bill in its current form, a Reuters report** said.
Either Donald Trump or Republican senators have not been
able to come out with a piece of legislation that would be smart enough to
outdo the Obamacare. Democrats have stood united against any proposed Republican
healthcare bill so far. But what should be eye-opener for Republicans that even
many Republicans are against the Obamacare replacement in its present form that
makes Republicans, who are in majority, short of votes to pass the bill in the
House as happened in May when, in a major defeat for Donald Trump, the
Republicans had to withdraw the legislation as they could not garner numbers
even after months of canvassing.
Accusing Trump of “giving billionaires and corporations a
massive tax cut” while bringing a piece of legislation that may put the
American people through the pain of massive healthcare costs, unlimited bills
and insurers’ rejections after they lose their insurance cover under Obamacare,
Obama appeals to the Americans to call Congress members and visit their offices
and speak out their minds to let America know “in very real terms, what this
means for them and their family” because what is at stake here is bigger than
politics. It is the character of the nation – “who we are, and who we aspire to
be and that’s always worth fighting for,” Obama writes.
©SantoshChaubey