Dear Senator Murkowski,
Few women are as powerful as you are, an observation that over the next two weeks may never be more true. You literally may determine whether tens of millions of people have access to life-saving healthcare, and more to the point, whether tens of thousands of people live or die.
You no doubt never expected to have the fate of so many lives in your hand, and to the extent that you’ve reflected upon it, it has probably been an abstract concept—voting whether or not we go to war; how much money is allocated here, there or elsewhere; contributing just one vote toward so many critical decisions.
But right now, yours may be the deciding vote in determining whether or not healthcare is affordable to the millions of people who have lost their jobs, are living on fixed incomes, are earning minimum wage or not much more, have pre-existing conditions, or are entrepreneurs cobbling together enough to make it through the month, never knowing if their income will cover expenses from one month to the next.
Like so many Americans, I lost my job at the age of fifty and unexpectedly discovered just how tough it can be for someone in middle-age to find a job, regardless of our prior employment records. After hundreds of rejections, I went to work for myself. The first few years were rough, but now they’re paying off. Still, given the escalating housing costs in my region and a daughter in college, if it weren’t for the Affordable Care Act, I would not be able to afford health insurance.
Despite its flaws (and there are many) with the coverage of the ACA, I can now have annual exams. If I get a lump in my breast, I can go to the doctor and have it checked out and not worry that I can’t pay the rent if I do so. With the coverage of the ACA, my early-onset glaucoma can be monitored. Under the provisions of the ACA, my 20-year-old daughter, a junior in college, can be covered on her father’s health plan. With the coverage of the ACA, I know that if I am seriously injured or develop cancer or heart disease or any number of other health problems aging people acquire, I can be treated.
But if I lose that coverage, my insurance rates will exceed my rent. I won’t be able to afford anything more than catastrophic coverage—which will not include preventive care and will still require a deductible and copays far beyond what I earn—and until I qualify for Medicare, it will mean each day is a gamble. A lump in the breast will mean deciding upon having it checked out and risking bankruptcy to treat it, or waiting to see if it will go away, praying it’s just a benign cyst. Chest pain will have to run its course because the costs of finding out whether or not I’m having a heart attack will simply be too high—it won’t be a matter of choosing between a vacation or a cardiac exam—without the money in the bank, the exam will be as much a luxury as buying a new car.
If I break a bone, it might mean depleting my meager retirement fund to have it set. If I need medication, I will have to choose between groceries or costly pharmaceuticals. And if my daughter is thrown off her father’s health plan when she turns 21 and is still in college, she will have to hope she doesn’t get injured or become sick—because part-time jobs rarely cover health insurance.
And yet, I’m one of the lucky ones. I don’t have a pre-existing condition aside from the glaucoma, I don’t have a chronic disease or family member with one, and I’m past the age of pregnancy. But my good health doesn’t change the stark reality that I need access to affordable health care.
Your vote on this pending legislation to do away with what has been politicized as “Obamacare” but is, in fact, the Affordable Care Act—may be the deciding vote. You may well have to decide between party allegiance and literally saving lives.
Please vote to save our lives and address the problems of the Affordable Care Act realistically. The Graham-Cassidy bill is not a healthcare policy; it’s a bill to eliminate our healthcare. It is a last-ditch effort to scrap the accomplishments of former President Obama to satisfy a small but powerful group of Washington insiders. Please don’t join the chorus to shred his presidency no matter what the costs. The benefits of doing so may be political points, Koch brother donations, favors owed you and the satisfaction that you’ve got that matter off your plate and can move on to something else. But the costs to us are quite literally our lives.