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I’ll say it straight out: I support the Affordable Care Act. I think that government-provided or government-subsidized health insurance is essential to any comprehensive support system for the lower class, and that such a system is central to a unified America. Too many low-income families are stuck with poor living conditions, consequent health conditions, and barely affordable care. For me, this debate boils down to two things: numbers and principle. It’s been a few years since the ACA was passed, and statistics have begun to roll in. The uninsured rate is down 25%. Premiums have risen, but 85% of those who qualify for the ACA get government subsidies which are substantial enough to offset the increase. And if you look at the maps below, you’ll see that the ACA helped exactly who it was intended to help. By and large, the lowest income counties had the highest increases in insured citizens. Those poor families I was talking about in the first paragraph? Medicaid added 8.7 million people to its roster, people who either should have been on Medicaid or were uninsured entirely.
If you look at my home state of Kentucky, this is especially clear. Eastern Kentucky holds 5 of the 10 poorest counties in America (measured by median household income; this offsets statistical outliers to measure the income of the average, run-of-the-mill family). And as shown in the maps above, Eastern Kentucky had huge gains in its numbers of insured. A lot of this is due to Kentucky’s state-run healthcare exchange, kynect. Since the program began, 421,000 Kentuckians have gained health insurance. Almost 56,000 of those registered for Medicaid since October. The other reason I support the ACA is just common human decency. Everyone has the right to quality medical access, and as a nation we must help those who can’t afford private care. We have public schools because a mentally fit America is valued. Why isn’t our physical well-being just as important? Part of being in a society is taking care of each other. America is powerful enough to afford to be altruistic now and again. The motto of Kentucky is the age-old saying “United we stand, divided we fall.” I don’t know when our obsession with individual wealth overcame our desire to see all humans flourish, but we must take actions--actions, not oaths or expressions of sympathy—to fortify the health of an ailing lower class. The ACA is a crucial step towards that end, and I, for one, am glad to see it’s here to stay.
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