I recently wrote a letter to my congressperson, Rick Larsen (D-WA). I also plan to edit this to send as a letter to the editor of my local rag. I thought I would share a copy with you all in case anybody wants to use any of these arguments with their own Reps — especially the R’s who might respond to an economic rationale for saving/improving ACA. Use whatever you like!
Dear Rep. Larsen,
I write to suggest that not only does the ACA save lives, it also saves livelihoods. You are probably aware that since 2010 many smaller, more rural hospitals have closed across the country, and as of March 2016, fully 77% of them were in states that did not expand Medicaid. With a robust Health Plan Exchange and Medicaid expansion, Washington has been fortunate to have had NO hospital closures. When a community has high numbers of uninsured people, they seek care at the ER's of local hospitals as a last resort. The burden of providing that uncompensated care can sink a hospital, forcing it to close.
When a hospital closes, hundreds of people are thrown out of work and all the financial contributions they make to their communities vanish. People have no place to seek emergency or hospital care without having to drive many miles, driving up costs. The absence of convenient emergency or hospital care makes a community a much less attractive place to live or invest in. Who wants to live where the closest hospital is an hour or more away when the baby is burning up with fever in the middle of the night or a serious accident occurs at work?
We have 4 small hospitals serving our mostly rural communities - Skagit Valley Hospital in Mount Vernon, Peace Health in Bellingham, Island Hospital of Anacortes, and WhidbeyHealth Hospital. On a website that tracks subsidized ACA signups (ACAsignups.net), I learned that over 48,000 people in Whatcom, Skagit, Island, and San Juan counties are at risk of losing coverage if the ACA is repealed. I do not think our small, rural hospitals can withstand the burden of providing uncompensated care for that many vulnerable citizens. We run the risk of financially ruining these essential health services if that happens, which would put thousands of people out of work, cause a worsening of the financial health of the communities they live in, and make obtaining needed health care much more difficult for all of the citizens in these areas.
I believe providing health care is a moral imperative. We also need to realize that health care is ESSENTIAL INFRASTRUCTURE, CRITICAL TO ECONOMIC GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT, CRITICAL TO ATTRACTING AND RETAINING BUSINESSES AND SKILLED LABOR, no different from internet, electricity, roads, or schools, all of which we subsidize to one degree or another. We must subsidize the healthcare of low income citizens so that whole communities can be assured of access. Save our lives and our livelihoods! Save our local hospitals! Save and improve the ACA!
Barbara Banfield, RN
