Local elected officials champion Affordable Care Act, Harris ahead of election

In 2017, Virginia resident Laura Packard visited the doctor for a cough that wouldn’t go away. She walked out with a stage four cancer diagnosis.

On Thursday, outside the Lucas County Courthouse on Adams Street, Ms. Packard told the story of her cancer fight. Toledo is just one of 50 stops across 17 states for the Protect Our Care’s “Lower Costs, Better Care” bus tour.

Protect Our Care is a left-wing nonprofit that advocates for the preservation of the Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare, and the Inflation Reduction Act, which capped the price of insulin.

“Thankfully, I had good insurance through the Affordable Care Act that was able to pay for the six months of chemotherapy and month of radiation treatments it took for me to be here today,” Ms. Packard said. “The day after my first chemotherapy appointment, MAGA Republicans in the U.S. House voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act, which was keeping me alive.”

Despite attempts to undo the ACA, it was not repealed under former President Donald Trump’s administration. In May, 2017, the House did pass the American Health Care Act, which would undo ACA subsidies and regulations, but the bill did not pass the Senate. Trump did end up cutting funding for programs promoting health-care enrollment under the ACA in August, 2017.

Ms. Packard was joined by Toledo City Council President Carrie Hartman and Lucas County Commissioners Lisa Sobecki and Pete Gerken. Mr. Gerken shared a personal story about his stepson, who cannot get health insurance through his employer — a problem that then falls on local governments.

“Here in local government, Lisa, Carrie, and I have to deal with the aftermath of people that don’t have insurance,” he said. “They’re in our hospitals, they get unpaid medical bills. Here in Lucas County, we had to take $800,000 of our money to do medical debt relief. We have invested locally on medical debt relief because our people shouldn’t have this medical debt.”

He highlighted other resources the county provides to help, including the Lucas County Department of Jobs and Family Services, which provides information to residents on how to connect to ACA resources, and the county’s CareNet program, which provides access to healthcare services for low-income residents.

“The benefit is amazing,” Mr. Gerken said of the tax-payer funded program. “It keeps them out of hospitals, it keeps them out of intensive care, it keeps them out of ERs when they have preventive and regular health care.”

Protect Our Care started in the wake of attempts to repeal the ACA and has continued advocacy efforts since then. Ahead of the November election, the group is championing  Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential bid.

“We’re going across the country to kind of spread the word, both to talk about the successes that come from the Biden-Harris Administration through the Inflation Reduction Act and building the success of the ACA, but really raise the alarm with what happened and what’s at stake if these were to go away,” said Anne Shoup, communications director for Protect Our Care.

Some argue the Affordable Care Act made health-care and prescription drug prices unaffordable. During the ABC News presidential debate this month, Trump said he was interested in repealing the Affordable Care Act if elected, but when pressed for specifics, he said he has “concepts of a plan.”

“Obamacare was lousy health care. Always was,” he said during the debate. “It’s not very good today and, what I said, that if we come up with something, we are working on things, we’re going to do it, and we’re going to replace it.”

The Republican Party Platform, adopted at the Republican National Convention in July, vows that Republicans will “increase Transparency, promote Choice and Competition, and expand access to new affordable Healthcare and prescription drug options.”

The Democratic Party Platform touts the success of the ACA and says Democrats will support Medicaid expansion and work to remove financial barriers for the Children’s Health Insurance Program.

According to the Democrats’ platform, the ACA has provided 45 million Americans with insurance and protected nearly 180 million people from lifetime coverage limits.