On March 6, Ken Akins, Marissa Pyle, and Bette Holland met with Rep. Doug Collins (R) at his Gainesville office to talk about the Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare). We were joined outside his office by over 100 friends from all over the 9th district. Since Rep. Collins refuses to hold in person town halls, we went to him!

Pyle told her family's story of how the Affordable Care Act saved their family from destruction after her father was diagnosed with cancer and after she was diagnosed with auto-immune disease. They had just gotten coverage under ACA when all this happened. Her story can be repeated millions of times all over the country.

After our visit there was a lengthy quote in The Times of Gainesville which basically said we were asking for a failing health care program to be continued and that many more people suffer more than Pyle has benefitted because of the expense of the exchanges.

Then the Republican plan was published. The plan will mean loss of coverage or coverage so expensive that 20 million people will no longer be able to afford medical care. Rep. Collins wrote about the Ryan/Trump bill in an editorial that was published in the White County news last week. He began by talking about his constituent Mrs. Ivey of Toccoa, who had to go to work full time to afford the exchange premiums. Although I sympathize with her predicament, she might want to look to her employer who decided to drop health care insurance for employees.

Collins mentioned that this plan would bring $883 billion in tax relief to "hard working" Americans. But statistics show that most of that tax relief would go to wealthy Americans.

He praised cuts to Planned Parenthood which mean that millions of women who rely on the ability to get cancer screenings through Planned Parenthood would lose that benefit.

He talked about cuts to Medicaid expansion. He said these cuts would insure that Medicaid only went to the disabled and the elderly and not to able bodied men. Well guess what, there are plenty of able bodied men and women who get sick but because of low income can't afford medical insurance. This plan would drop approximately 10 million people from Medicaid.

Then he complained about those who don't like the tax credits for insurance. ObamaCare gave tax credits to low income people so they could afford health insurance. The reason people are against the credits as proposed in this bill is that the credits are so small that most people still won't be able to afford insurance. Also this bill gives a person making $75,000 a year a tax credit-why? In addition an older person will be required to pay five times more for insurance than a younger person. If this passes it means that a single person 60 years old living in Lumpkin County making $30,000 a year will pay $10,400 for insurance a year as opposed to $1700 under Obama Care.

Basically, the very people who voted for Trump, who want better insurance at less cost, will get less coverage at more cost. More lies, more broken promises.

Sources: Kaiser Health Network News, Kaiser Family Foundation, Georgia Budget and Policy Institute, Congressional Budget Office

Bette Holland
Dawson County