In response to Sen. Lisa Murkowski's commentary about the Affordable Care Act, published May 10, Moda's exit from the health insurance market in Alaska is indeed worrisome. However, in spite of the senator's rant about the ACA, I have to question her motives and her insistence that she is "… struggling to improve it at every opportunity."
For sure, the ACA has several issues. I have always been a supporter of the law but even I believe it has two major problems. First, it is not affordable to many who do not qualify for the federal subsidies and second, it does nothing to fix the astronomical cost of health care in this country.
Sen. Murkowski, like most of her Republican colleagues, rants against the ACA, but never does she or they offer an alternative or any meaningful fixes to the law. That is, never do they have any solution to the problem of the health care system in this country, which is unaffordable to the poor and becoming unaffordable to an ever larger segment of the population. I've never seen a study that rates the U.S. even in the top 10 in any health measurement category.
There is one exception, of course. The U.S. is No. 1 in the world in health care costs by a large margin. Health care costs in this country are far greater than in any other developed country, and the health care costs in Alaska are greater than in almost all other states. So the problem is that we do not have the best health care but we do have the most costly health care. So costly that more and more Alaskans and other Americans do not see a doctor when they should and put off or ignore important medical issues, often to the detriment of their overall health.
The ACA has failed in two important ways. First, the ACA did not stem the ever-rising costs of health care -- but it also did not create those high costs. Second, it did not stem the ever-rising costs of health insurance -- but neither did it create those high costs. Health care costs and health insurance costs in this country have been increasing steadily for decades, long before the ACA was enacted.
Since FDR's administration, many Democrats have lobbied for National Health Care Insurance only to be shot down by Republican opposition. However, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney signed a health care bill similar to the ACA into law when he was governor of Massachusetts. The core concept of the ACA, mandatory health insurance for everyone, was originally proposed by the very conservative Washington think tank Heritage Foundation in the late 1980s. A national health care insurance plan similar to the ACA was first introduced in Congress in 1993 by a Republican senator from Rhode Island. Yet when the ACA was introduced in Congress during President Obama's first administration, it was universally vilified by every congressional Republican. And throughout this administration no Republican has proposed an alternative to the ACA or really worked to correct its problems. They only repeat the party-line mantra of "Repeal! Repeal! Repeal!"
For 80 years we have needed a solution to the unaffordable health care problem in this country. And for 80 years until the ACA was enacted, Congress was not able to come up with any solution. So if the ACA is still not the answer, what is? What do you propose, Sen. Murkowski, as your replacement for the ACA? What are your specific fixes, not just your call for repeal? The core problem still exists. Repealing the ACA is not a solution to the health care problem in Alaska or the country because, in spite of Republican rhetoric, the ACA did not create the problem.
Sen. Murkowski's commentary did not propose one actual solution to the problems of high medical costs, high medical insurance costs and access to good medical care for all Alaskans. It is easy to criticize someone else's solution to a problem but apparently much more difficult to come up with a workable solution of your own.
Randall Stauffer lives in Seward. He's a retired engineer and project manager and an elected delegate to the Alaska State Democratic Convention.
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