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There's so much that's going to be lost under Trumpcare—lives and health for millions, to be sure. But for people whose health isn't on the line, there are less dramatic consequences: Trumpcare is threatening to return us to the days when health insurance companies were in charge, and people were stuck in jobs (or marriages) they hated because they had to keep their care. And if you lose your job? Good luck.
If the Republican replacement plan approved by the House becomes law, changing jobs or careers could become much more difficult.
Across the nation, Americans in their 50s and early 60s, still too young to qualify for Medicare, could be hit hard by soaring insurance costs, especially people now eligible for generous subsidies through the existing federal health care law.
This news scares Fern Warnat, 59. She has gotten insurance on the federal marketplace a couple of times in the last few years. When she and her husband moved from New York to Boca Raton, Fla., she bought a policy for a few months to tide her over until she got coverage from a new job. A year later, she needed to buy insurance again when she found herself unemployed. The policy was expensive—around $800 a month.
"It wasn't easy, but it was available," she said.
Now she worries what would happen under the Republican plan if she left her job at a home health company that provides insurance.
"I need something to be there," she said. "I'm going to be 60 years old. All my conditions pre-exist."
We all lived that way before the Affordable Care Act became law, having to make basic life decisions based in part on whether or not we could have health insurance.
Entrepreneurs were stifled, not wanting to take a chance on their dreams by striking out on their own with no options for affordable coverage. People like David Clark, another individual featured in this article, kept working later in life even though their health was compromised—they had to because they couldn't qualify for Medicare yet. Under Obamacare, Clark could retire and still have his triple bypass covered, allowing he and his wife "three of the greatest years of our life."
Republicans want to take us back to that and even further, to a time when there wasn't even a Medicaid guarantee. So that they can cut taxes for the very rich.
Call your Democratic senator/s through the Capitol switchboard, 202-224-3121 and at their local offices and tell them you expect them to do everything in their power to make passing Trumpcare as painful as possible for Mitch McConnell and team.