Letter: Improve health care coverage for all Americans – Bangor Daily News
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Hiking down Mount Waldo near my home last summer, I slipped on loose gravel turning my ankle resulting in three fractures. After surgery, which included nine screws and some metal, I am hiking again. I am exceedingly grateful to Medicare, proposed by President Harry Truman, reintroduced by President Lyndon Johnson 20 years later and passed into law by Congress in 1965. With supplemental insurance, I am fully recovered and not one bill. This could be possible for every American.
President Joe Biden recently enacted changes to federal rules to make health insurance available to roughly 5 million additional Americans, especially women and children, through the Affordable Care Act (ACA) also known as Obamacare.
Since 2010, when President Barack Obama introduced and Congress passed the ACA, no American can be denied healthcare for preexisting conditions nor be forced to drop children from their parent’s healthcare policy before age 26. President Biden extended the time to sign up this past year and now enrollment in the ACA is at a record high.
Former Republican President Theodore Roosevelt first proposed universal health care, and Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower encouraged it in 1953 by creating the Department of Health, Education and Welfare.
Recently, Republican Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin announced Republican intention to get rid of the ACA if they win control of Congress in the November midterms. It would leave 31 million Americans without healthcare.
Thank you to President Biden for allowing more families to qualify for the Affordable Care Act and for his proposed legislation to further reduce the cost of premiums and prescription drugs.
Carole Beal
Blue Hill
