The Democrats bravely stand against the Republicans’ bid to repeal Obamacare to protect our right to accessible healthcare
“Imagine this scene - you are a child and you want to buy a lollipop today. But now, because a lollipop wasn’t accounted for in your pocket money, you run along to ask your mom for more pocket money. Now, you think it’s just a lollipop, so it won’t cost much, right?”
“But time flies, and you’re now a university student buying textbooks for the new semester. Textbooks don’t just cost a few cents or a few dollars, but a few hundred dollars. Unfortunately, for whatever reasons, you failed to qualify for financial aid and hence you have to pay for all the resources yourself. Does your mom have the money to pay for your textbooks? And are textbooks all your mom has to pay for? NO! And that is the exact issue of block grants - it sounds like a flowery road, but when it hits you hard, it hits you hard,” called a representative on the Democratic side. And with this, he had exposed the fallacy behind block grants - that it on the contrary, it does not actually allow for flexibility, but instead limits it.
This morning in the United States Senate, Senators from across the country had gathered to discuss the issue of the healthcare system in the United States. The debate had quickly turned to being dominated by the Republicans, who were eager to abolish Obama’s Affordable Healthcare Act (ACA) and replace it with their own proposition of block grants for states.
However, is this really what we want for our people?
Up till now, the ACA, which had been put into place by then President Obama, has repeatedly come under fire for certain rulings, such as a mandate that most people have to purchase insurance or face penalties. We do not deny that the ACA is a flawed system, however, we cannot deny the positive impacts it has had on the country either; together with Medicaid, the ACA covers the medical fees of 1 in 5 Americans, which is a whopping 63 million people. The ACA also helps prop up hospitals through this, and allows them to focus their funds on providing quality medical care for patients. Furthermore, it allows for funding of additional healthcare programmes such as in-home care programmes for the elderly, as well as drug rehabilitation programmes and more. If we repeal the ACA entirely, we stand to lose a huge part of our healthcare system, depriving the people who need it the most.
Undoubtedly, accessible healthcare is a basic human right, and it is the duty of societies to ensure that all citizens, rich or poor, are able to have at least a basic level of healthcare. In a statement released in July this year, the president of the Catholic Healthcare Association (CHA), Mercy Sister Mary Haddad, criticized the moves of the Republican party, saying that their "effort to eliminate access to affordable health care coverage for millions of Americans is unconscionable." How could we call this a quality healthcare system?
The block grant system as well, is a step back from the ACA. In an address at the Charity and Health Commission of the Italian Bishops’ Conference in 2017, Pope Francis had warned that “when money is the guiding principle of policies in healthcare and administrative decisions, there can be a temptation to lose the protections to the right to healthcare” Block grants are exactly emblematic of this.
As put by Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) in her speech, “Block grants are inflexible. The only flexibility they provide is what to cut” While block grants seemingly provide greater autonomy for individual states to reallocate funding for different medical programmes in accordance with the needs of the state, it is more likely to result in funding cuts for programmes in accordance with the decisions of the state representatives in order to decrease governmental medical expenditure, thus possibly depriving groups such as the disabled, the poor and women of more accessible healthcare. Furthermore, since there are loopholes in legislation of what each individual state can do, there is a lack of accountability for where the money is going, where it might be going possibly to only select groups of people, while depriving others of their basic human right to healthcare.
Through a strong opposition in debate, the Democrats had successfully shut down the Republicans on their proposition of block grants and protected the right to healthcare for all in the United States. By doing so, they will allow for the continued access of healthcare to the many underprivileged people in the country. Polls are also showing increasing favour for the Democrats’ stance, thus showing the public’s support for protecting Medicaid.
Rather than retain the existing ACA and Medicaid, the Democrats had also proposed an even better solution to it - to marry the private and public medical care systems.
In her speech, Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) had called upon members of the senate to harken back to the root cause of soaring medical fees in the US: the lack of regulation of the private medical sector and how private companies are able to dominate the field and set exorbitantly high prices for drugs and other medical resources.
In his 2017 address, Pope Francis had also urged healthcare systems worldwide “to optimize resources means to use them in an ethical and responsible manner and not to penalize the most fragile” We know that no system is perfect - you win some, you lose some. By this reasoning, it would be the best compromise for the marriage of the two systems, such that we can ensure some regulation of the private sector, while giving the private sector some breathing room by not stuffing all of our medical system under a state-run umbrella. This way, we can keep up the quality of medical services for the people while keeping prices in check and affordable for most people regardless of socioeconomic status.
The solutions proposed by the Democratic party are most certainly promising, and we can see clearly that the Democrats truly hold the needs of the American people close to their heart. We hope to see more great things from them in the upcoming debates.
“Imagine this scene - you are a child and you want to buy a lollipop today. But now, because a lollipop wasn’t accounted for in your pocket money, you run along to ask your mom for more pocket money. Now, you think it’s just a lollipop, so it won’t cost much, right?”
“But time flies, and you’re now a university student buying textbooks for the new semester. Textbooks don’t just cost a few cents or a few dollars, but a few hundred dollars. Unfortunately, for whatever reasons, you failed to qualify for financial aid and hence you have to pay for all the resources yourself. Does your mom have the money to pay for your textbooks? And are textbooks all your mom has to pay for? NO! And that is the exact issue of block grants - it sounds like a flowery road, but when it hits you hard, it hits you hard,” called a representative on the Democratic side. And with this, he had exposed the fallacy behind block grants - that it on the contrary, it does not actually allow for flexibility, but instead limits it.
This morning in the United States Senate, Senators from across the country had gathered to discuss the issue of the healthcare system in the United States. The debate had quickly turned to being dominated by the Republicans, who were eager to abolish Obama’s Affordable Healthcare Act (ACA) and replace it with their own proposition of block grants for states.
However, is this really what we want for our people?
Up till now, the ACA, which had been put into place by then President Obama, has repeatedly come under fire for certain rulings, such as a mandate that most people have to purchase insurance or face penalties. We do not deny that the ACA is a flawed system, however, we cannot deny the positive impacts it has had on the country either; together with Medicaid, the ACA covers the medical fees of 1 in 5 Americans, which is a whopping 63 million people. The ACA also helps prop up hospitals through this, and allows them to focus their funds on providing quality medical care for patients. Furthermore, it allows for funding of additional healthcare programmes such as in-home care programmes for the elderly, as well as drug rehabilitation programmes and more. If we repeal the ACA entirely, we stand to lose a huge part of our healthcare system, depriving the people who need it the most.
Undoubtedly, accessible healthcare is a basic human right, and it is the duty of societies to ensure that all citizens, rich or poor, are able to have at least a basic level of healthcare. In a statement released in July this year, the president of the Catholic Healthcare Association (CHA), Mercy Sister Mary Haddad, criticized the moves of the Republican party, saying that their "effort to eliminate access to affordable health care coverage for millions of Americans is unconscionable." How could we call this a quality healthcare system?
The block grant system as well, is a step back from the ACA. In an address at the Charity and Health Commission of the Italian Bishops’ Conference in 2017, Pope Francis had warned that “when money is the guiding principle of policies in healthcare and administrative decisions, there can be a temptation to lose the protections to the right to healthcare” Block grants are exactly emblematic of this.
As put by Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) in her speech, “Block grants are inflexible. The only flexibility they provide is what to cut” While block grants seemingly provide greater autonomy for individual states to reallocate funding for different medical programmes in accordance with the needs of the state, it is more likely to result in funding cuts for programmes in accordance with the decisions of the state representatives in order to decrease governmental medical expenditure, thus possibly depriving groups such as the disabled, the poor and women of more accessible healthcare. Furthermore, since there are loopholes in legislation of what each individual state can do, there is a lack of accountability for where the money is going, where it might be going possibly to only select groups of people, while depriving others of their basic human right to healthcare.
Through a strong opposition in debate, the Democrats had successfully shut down the Republicans on their proposition of block grants and protected the right to healthcare for all in the United States. By doing so, they will allow for the continued access of healthcare to the many underprivileged people in the country. Polls are also showing increasing favour for the Democrats’ stance, thus showing the public’s support for protecting Medicaid.
Rather than retain the existing ACA and Medicaid, the Democrats had also proposed an even better solution to it - to marry the private and public medical care systems.
In her speech, Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) had called upon members of the senate to harken back to the root cause of soaring medical fees in the US: the lack of regulation of the private medical sector and how private companies are able to dominate the field and set exorbitantly high prices for drugs and other medical resources.
In his 2017 address, Pope Francis had also urged healthcare systems worldwide “to optimize resources means to use them in an ethical and responsible manner and not to penalize the most fragile” We know that no system is perfect - you win some, you lose some. By this reasoning, it would be the best compromise for the marriage of the two systems, such that we can ensure some regulation of the private sector, while giving the private sector some breathing room by not stuffing all of our medical system under a state-run umbrella. This way, we can keep up the quality of medical services for the people while keeping prices in check and affordable for most people regardless of socioeconomic status.
The solutions proposed by the Democratic party are most certainly promising, and we can see clearly that the Democrats truly hold the needs of the American people close to their heart. We hope to see more great things from them in the upcoming debates.
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