We the People: Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water

President-elect Trump has pledged to work with Congress to repeal the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare. Senator Mitch McConnell, the majority leader, is champing at the bit to dismantle Obamacare but he has no plan for a replacement. Representative Paul Ryan implores citizens just to wait and see what the Republicans have waiting in the wings as if this is a game show. The problem is that the people of this nation may end up with the “booby” prize.

It is easy for members of Congress to talk about paying for health insurance since they enjoy wonderful salaries and health insurance benefits. According to Fox News, a senator receives a base salary of $174,000, health insurance, a pension plan and a tax deferred savings plan called a “Thrift Savings Plan.”

In the Thrift Savings Plan, tax-deferred salary is invested and members’ contributions are matched up to five percent, which will supplement their pensions. They are eligible for a full pension at age 62 after one term in the Senate. Senators’ benefits are described as “a mountain of perks” that Fortune 500 companies couldn’t match.

Members of Congress have a separate “piggy bank” called their “allowance,” which is annual funding including $250,000 for office expenses and additional funding for “franking” which is “free” postage they use to bombard constituents with mass mailings that the constituents actually pay for with their taxes. “According to a Congressional Research Service report, the average allocation … was more than $3.3 million” a year for each senator.

Now, Mitch McConnell, as Majority Leader, receives $193,400 in annual salary. He is a 30-year veteran of the Senate and will receive a wonderful pension. The Center for Responsive Politics ranks McConnell as the 10th richest senator, with a net worth between $9.2 million and $36.5 million. In 2004, his average net worth was $3.1 million, compared to a Senate average of $14.5 million, but it quadrupled after 2007, when it was pegged at $7.8 million.

The casual talk about eliminating health insurance for working Americans is despicable from a man whose only goal in 30 years of public service seems to be to accumulate wealth and get credit for dismantling the first real reform to U.S. healthcare in over 40 years.

In 2008, before Obamacare, more than 82 percent of Americans were so dissatisfied with health care that they wanted it overhauled. The Republicans — who are now assuring you that getting rid of a system of healthcare is a good thing — have no skin in the game.

In 2008, more than 50 million Americans were uninsured. The average cost of health care and insurance was rising faster than inflation and driving more Americans to join the ranks of the uninsured. By 2009, employer-sponsored family coverage reached $13,375 a year, making health insurance too expensive for many American families. This increased the number of uninsured people which added to the expense of health care. An uninsured person seeks care in a hospital emergency room where it is the most expensive and leaves the bill with the hospital which must shift the cost to someone else.

American health care costs more per capita than anywhere else in the industrialized world. We were spending $8,745 a year, per person, or $4,000 more, per person, than Canada, France, Germany, Japan and the United Kingdom, according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.

That is money which could be spent to revitalize our economy or could be saved for retirement. The system also dampened entrepreneurship since anyone with good benefits would fear leaving government or corporate employment without being able to get good affordable health insurance on their own.

The figures don’t lie and the rate of increase for health care has slowed and more than 10 million Americans are now covered by health insurance thanks to Obamacare. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office reports that Obamacare will actually reduce the federal deficit in the coming years, which means the federal government will be spending less on health care in the future than it would have if Obamacare had not been enacted.

Meanwhile, the multimillionaire club called the Senate along with our billionaire president will lead the charge to throw our health care reform baby out with the bath water.

It makes no sense to dismantle a system without a replacement. McConnell is a destructive leader, not a constructive one. The people deserve answers and must demand that a decision to make more than 10 million Americans uninsured again be made only after the people who will be affected have been heard.

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