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Here's just one more piece of good Obamacare news undercutting the Republican case for repealing it and putting their crappy Trumpcare in its place: medical bankruptcies have declined significantly since the Affordable Care Act passed in 2010. Consumer Reports reported late last month that since 2010, personal bankruptcies have fallen about 50 percent—partly because of an improved economy, but also because of the ACA.
As the senate works on its plan to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, Katie Weber is paying close attention. The 29-year old is fighting cancer.
She says her expensive treatments would have bankrupted her had it not been for the financial protections of the ACA.
"I don't know how many MRIs I've had, but in the dozens for sure," she said.
Courts never ask people why they are filing, but many bankruptcy and legal experts that Consumer Reports spoke with agree on this: medical bills had been a leading cause of personal bankruptcy before health insurance expanded under the Affordable Care Act.
"Medical bills are often unexpected, large and unavoidable, so people who don't have insurance can run up massive debt in a relatively short period of time," explained Allen St. John with Consumer Reports.
If popular vote loser Donald Trump and his Republican-controlled Congress have their way, medical bankruptcies will be back. Both versions of Trumpcare—the House and Senate bills—would kick millions of people off of their insurance, and one of the key factors in medical bankruptcies is not having insurance.
Beyond that, both versions would undermine protections for people with pre-existing conditions, exposing them to the high cost of treatments because the insurance premiums they could afford don't come with coverage for expensive treatments.
The draft Senate bill would once again allow insurance companies to put a cap on annual or lifetime payments. There are plenty of people who had insurance before the ACA who were bankrupted when they had to keep paying for treatment after the insurance company stopped paying. That's what Republicans want to go back to: premature deaths and personal bankruptcies—for the poor and middle class, anyway.
Make your Republican senator feel the heat. Call their office EVERY DAY at (202) 224-3121 to demand that they say NO to ripping health care away from millions of Americans. No on Trumpcare. Then, tell us how it went.