Nicole Johnson: Without Obamacare, many will resort to emergency rooms again

Jeff Denham is betraying his constituents by supporting the Republican replacement health-care plan. That plan effectively limits low-income workers to costly emergency room visits or death. The market did not provide affordable health care for these workers before Obamacare and there is no reason to predict it will now. That is not a savings, as everyone pays for these emergency-room visits through their own insurance costs,

Before Medicare enrollment, older people with modest incomes will have to pay one third to one half of their income for insurance, as predicted by the Congressional Budget Report. Their predictable choice is also emergency room care or death. Rep. Denham is willing to risk their lives.

Even people currently enrolled in employer-sponsored group healthcare insurance might lose that status as the Republican replacement plan has no incentives or mandate for employers to continue offering group plans.

The House Republican replacement plan places us all at risk, some sooner than others. It saves money primarily by depriving many of life saving medical care. Jeff Denham needs to attend to his constituents’ real needs.

This story was originally published March 23, 2017 at 1:42 PM with the headline "Nicole Johnson: Without Obamacare, many will resort to emergency rooms again."