Access to health care is a human right

Carlos Martinez, Brigadier General, USAF, (Ret)

Brigadier General Carlos Martinez | El Nuevo Herald

Growing up, my family never had health insurance. Thankfully, as a child I was fortunate to never need professional medical care. For the most part I suffered from nothing more than colds or infections that my parents were able to treat at home. But we were always afraid that we would need more medical care than my parents could provide. Because of this, my parents always kept a little money in the bank just in case, enough to cover small medical bills but nothing more.

This risk is faced by a large part of our population and medical costs are now much higher than when I was a child. An accident or a serious illness can ruin a family.

In 2013, there were about 45 million people who had no financial protection against the risks of a serious illness or a major accident. These people had to open their wallets to pay for all their medical needs such as treatment for common illnesses like colds or flu. In worse cases like a car accident or a cancer diagnosis they had to take out loans to cover their large medical expenses. For many it was difficult or impossible to repay the loans resulting in financial ruin.

During those days insurance companies used medical risk assessments to determine whether to offer coverage to a person, at what price, and with what exclusions or limits based on the person's health status. People would have to pay depending on the risk these assessments presented to the insurance companies. The goal was to protect the financial profits of the insurance companies, not to protect those in need of medical care. Many families could not afford to pay the prices demanded and remained without coverage. In other cases, even though they could pay, they were denied coverage altogether because their medical assessments presented too much risk to the insurance company.

That’s why, during Barack Obama’s presidency, the U.S. government passed the Affordable Care Act, known simply as “Obamacare.” Under this law, all U.S. residents could get affordable health insurance. Under this law, children could be covered by insurance until they turned 25, and no one could be denied insurance coverage due to preexisting conditions, and it was affordable because it offered a discount based on family income. This law offers insurance to all residents of this country, regardless of race, gender, religion, or national origin.

Thanks to the insurance premium discounts offered through this law many more Americans are now able to purchase affordable insurance. Thanks to the implementation of Obamacare in 2014, the number of uninsured Americans has dropped from more than 45 million to less than 27 million.

Far fewer Americans now fear the tragedy of being ruined by a medical condition. Despite the benefits it provides to so many people in this country, Republicans have wanted to eliminate this program since the day it was passed. Republicans have consistently failed in their efforts to eliminate this program because they have been unable to find a better one. However, Republicans are likely to try again to eliminate Obamacare. Republicans want to return to the days of yore when insurance companies made a lot of money, and we paid more for less.

Kamala Harris, on the other hand, wants to protect the benefits we’ve been given under the Affordable Care Act, and expand them to make health care even more affordable. She wants to make permanent the current ACA tax credit enhancements that are lowering health care premiums by an average of about $800 a year for millions of Americans. She wants to extend the $35 cap on insulin and $2,000 cap on out-of-pocket spending for seniors to all Americans.  As Vice President, she helped cancel $7 billion of medical debt for 3 million Americans. As President, she’ll work with states to cancel medical debt for even more Americans. And she’ll help Medicare accelerate negotiations with drug companies to cover more drugs and lower prices for Americans.

So, in the November election, don't risk going back to the past, when we feared that a serious illness could ruin us. I urge you to vote for Kamala Harris, the candidate who will protect affordable health care. As she has said, “We’re not going back.”