Gutting Essential Health Benefits Hurts All of Us
Under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), over four million Latino adults and 600,000 Latino children have gained health coverage. But beyond these important gains, the ACA does something else.
The ACA ensures that every health plan covers at least these 10 “essential health benefits”:
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- Hospitalizations
- Doctors’ visits
- Prescription drugs
- Mental health and addiction treatment services
- Pregnancy, maternity, and newborn care
- Rehabilitative and habilitative services and devices
- Laboratory services
- Preventive care, wellness services, and chronic disease management
- Pediatric services, including oral and vision care for children
This means that no matter what health plan you choose, you will be able to use your plan to:
- Go to the hospital.
- See a doctor.
- Get the medication you’re prescribed.
Bottom line: in the event of a medical emergency, you have the peace of mind of knowing that you are protected.
The Republican bill to gut the ACA, the American Health Care Act, repeals this entire provision, leaving health plans essentially useless. Under this bill, millions of Americans would be one health care emergency away from financial bankruptcy.
The Republican bill would effectively allow insurance companies to once again lock those with pre-existing conditions out of health coverage. This means that 60 million non-elderly Americans, including 8 million Latinos, with a pre-existing condition, like cancer, asthma or diabetes, could be charged more for coverage or locked out completely.
This would not be popular with Latinos. A recent NCLR/Latino Decisions health care poll found that 90 percent of Latino voters across the political spectrum believe that it is “important to keep in place the part of the ACA that ensures that people cannot be denied insurance coverage” due to a pre-existing condition.
As negotiations over the American Health Care Act continue, this legislation is becoming worse for consumers, not better. Your elected officials need to hear from you.
Join us in the fight to protect our care. Text ‘ACA’ to 62571 to be put in touch with your Member of Congress and tell them to vote NO on the Republican health care plan.
