Defend Obamacare in Alaska

Republicans are distorting the facts regarding the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The absolute truth is that every American deserves access to affordable, quality health coverage, and currently 18% of Alaskans have no insurance, and many more are underinsured. For both of these demographics, one accident or illness could result in financial catastrophe.

Obamacare includes the largest middle-class tax cut for health care in history. According to the independent Congressional Budget Office, 19 million people will receive tax credits worth an average of about $4,800 each to help them afford health care. These tax credits will finally put health insurance within reach for millions of American families.

Around 1 percent of people—those who can afford to buy coverage but instead choose to opt out, shifting their costs to the rest of us—will pay a penalty. The Supreme Court acknowledged yesterday that this penalty will be charged through the tax code—but that doesn’t change its purpose of ensuring everyone who can afford insurance buys it, or its effect of lowering costs for everyone.

Before Obamacare, insurance companies had free rein to arbitrarily cap and cancel coverage, and they could waste our premiums on overheads and big bonuses for CEOs. With Obamacare, there will now be clear rules of the road to give patients and doctors more control over health care. These rules will make sure that you and your doctor—not your insurance company, and certainly not a Washington bureaucrat—have control over your health.

If you like the insurance you have, you can keep it. The only thing that’s changed is that your coverage is stronger. Here’s how:
• If you had a lifetime limit (and about 60 percent of employer-based plans did), it’s been lifted.
• If you have a child under the age of 26, they can stay on your plan.
• Insurance companies can no longer discriminate against children with pre-existing conditions.
• Starting in 2014, insurance companies will no longer be able to deny anyone insurance based on pre-existing conditions, helping up to 129 million Americans get the care they need.
• Insurance companies will no longer be able to charge women more than men for the exact same coverage.
• 54 million Americans already have access to better preventive services, free of charge.
• If you get sick, your insurance company can’t drop your coverage, and if they deny you a treatment, the law makes sure you have a chance to appeal.

Health care costs have been going up for decades—that’s one of the reasons President Obama fought to pass the Affordable Care Act. Obamacare makes targeted changes to hold costs down. The President started by taking on the insurance companies. As he said yesterday, the law ensures that insurance companies spend 80 percent of your premium dollars on your health care, not administrative costs or CEO bonuses. If they don’t follow that rule, they have to send you a rebate. This month, more than 12 million Americans will receive over $1 billion in rebate checks, and we’re all seeing lower premiums because of it.

The law also takes on waste in our health care system. Let’s take just one example: We spend billions of dollars every year treating people for infections they get while they are in the hospital. The health care law helps hospitals take simple but necessary steps to prevent infections. These types of reforms will save up to $35 billion and 60,000 lives.

Learn the truth about The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, then demand Governor Parnell implements it for Alaska.