People who need health insurance are flocking to Healthcare.gov to get it while they still can in record numbers, which is the most productive thing they can do right now.
More than 100,000 Americans rushed to buy health insurance under the Affordable Care Act on Wednesday, the biggest turnout yet during this year’s sign-up period, the day after the election of Donald J. Trump, who has promised to repeal the law.
The figure, announced by the Obama administration, added to a sense of whiplash about the law, and underscored the magnitude of any change. Despite all the criticisms about the law coming from President-elect Trump and his allies, millions of people now depend on it for coverage.
That underscores an existing reality for Republicans and Trump with repeal: upwards of 22 million people will lose their health insurance and that will be extremely unpopular. One healthcare reporter who's talked to senior Republican congressional staff writes that they are well aware of that and are already saying that "repeal" is more likely to be "reform," whatever they choose to call it in public.
What they're talking about preserving: "Pre-existing condition coverage; Letting children to stay on their parents’ plan until age 26; Lifetime caps on coverage; Medicaid expansion (but it will look different)." Setting aside Medicaid for now, how do you do all that when you also get rid of subsidies and the mandate that people have coverage? How can health insurers take all comers (pre-existing conditions) and eschew lifetime caps (think cancer care, other serious chronic illnesses) and not go broke. Because, remember, these rules apply to all insurance plans, not just Obamacare.
The insurance industry is not going to like that one bit. Without the mandate and without customers who can only afford their insurance because they get subsidies, they lose all the healthy customers who are paying for the ones who cost them so much—the ones with pre-existing conditions. The people who will try to keep their insurance at all costs and will keep costing insurers a lot. The insurance industry is going to raise holy hell if this is what Republicans are really going to try to do.
The alternative is that this is just talk, and Republicans truly want to dismantle the system "root and branch" as Mitch McConnell was wont to say. In which case, 22 million and counting people lose their health insurance and are even more furious than the insurance industry would be in the other scenario.
Your job: Make it worse for them. If you are eligible, sign up for Obamacare. If someone you know is eligible, get them signed up. The more customers the insurance industry has, the more people who are receiving this benefit, the harder it's going to be to get rid of. The most patriotic thing you can do for your fellow citizens right now is create a surge in Obamacare.