Gutting ACA outreach will raise costs and cost lives — but it’s also a chance to prepare for the 2018 election
Trump has never been less popular as president and Obamacare has never been more popular — ever. But in this gerrymandered, electoral college-d reality, popularity does not equal power. Trump is using every tool at his disposal to try to destroy the law that has brought America to the lowest uninsured rate ever recorded.
When did it stop being news that America now has the lowest uninsured rate in American history?https://t.co/T5isnw76X1 pic.twitter.com/s0WkTrcTDX
— LOLGOP (@LOLGOP) September 2, 2017
This week, we got some great news. This GOP is running out of time to repeal the ACA this time around.
BREAKING: Senate parliamentarian has told lawmakers GOP authority to pass an Obamacare replacement with just 51 votes expires Sept 30
— Laura Litvan (@LauraLitvan) September 1, 2017
And not coincidentally, the Trump Administration announced its most savage attempt to sabotage implementation of the law by cutting outreach for the ACA’s coming open enrollment period, which has already been shortened, through the bone.
When you cut this money, which comes from insurers, you’re trying to enroll fewer people who are far more likely to be sick, since healthy people have other things to worry about. Then premiums go up for everyone, along with the law’s subsidies. So the people most likely to be hurt are older Americans, who are more likely to be Trump voters and their family members who earn too much for premium support.
Take a moment to reflect that it is official Trump admin policy to make it harder for people to get health care, w/ no benefit to taxpayers https://t.co/6sxdfUVI2U
— Jacob Leibenluft (@jleibenluft) September 1, 2017
Andy Slavitt — who helped save Obamacare during the original HealthCare.gov debacle and led the fight against Trumpcare — wants to help save the law again.
His plan? Crowdsource outreach.
Meaning: It’s on you.
Step 1:
Retweet this:
Trump decided not to inform people of ACA open enrollment in order to sink it.
That's not the only option. RT here if you will help spread.
— Andy Slavitt (@ASlavitt) September 1, 2017
Step 2:
Retweet this:
Trump GUTTED funding for ACA advertising—and SLASHED the open enrollment period. So he *really* doesn't want you to share this key info: pic.twitter.com/VAngoqaJSL
— Topher Spiro (@TopherSpiro) September 1, 2017
Step 3:
Follow @ASlavitt, @TopherSpiro, @CAPAction and @Eclectablog‘s @alswrite because we’re working with @Charles_Gaba and his @ACASignups project to help drive enrollment in Michigan — one of the few states with a Republican governor that has done a decent job of implementing this law, which has resulted is a huge drop in our uninsured population.
This is a crisis but it’s also an opportunity.
Some people we need to reach out to the most — immigrants and vulnerable communities — are also the least likely to vote in 2018. If progressives rise up and build these neural networks to help save each other’s health care, we can then reignite them again when it matters most in November of next year.
We must not underestimate how hard it will be to take the House of Representatives. It’s also the most important thing we can do to check the unhinged, looting authoritarian in the White House.
Let’s turn this act of betrayal into the beginning of the end for Trump and it will be the best act of revenge since Senate Republicans blocked Elizabeth Warren from leading the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and inspired her to become a U.S. Senator.
[Image by LaDawna Howard via Flickr]
