Healthcare Reform Legislation

As our goal with this blog is to give our members a platform for expressing political opinion, we have opened up to students who wish to write "op-ed" pieces about political issues that are important to them. These pieces do not reflect official views of our club, but rather help to demonstrate the diversity of ideas and opinions our members have.

Our first piece comes from Matt Miklas, about Health Care legislation. Feel free to leave comments and discuss.

Healthcare Reform Legislation

By: Matt Miklas

Mmiklas@aug.edu

Nearly seven months ago, President Obama signed the most historic piece of legislation in the history of the U.S. with the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

This piece of legislation guarantees that young adults will be on their parents’ healthcare plan until the age of 26. Second, insurances cannot deny individual coverage to children with pre-existing conditions. Also, the new law allows a tax credit to small businesses in order to help get coverage for their employees. Finally, if you get sick, your insurance company cannot drop you, ending the practice of rescission. These are just a few of the things the law will do in the first year.

I will probably be only a few people who will say this, but I supported the new healthcare reform legislation. You have to understand that I am a 22-year-old who has special needs, who currently lives at home, and like a lot of other college students, I do not have a hefty income.

There are three things that I really like about the act.

First, I like that young people will be able to remain on their parents’ plan until the age of 26. Why do I like this? I like it because it will allow me the opportunity to get some valuable income, so that when I turn 26, I will be able to handle any medical cost. In my opinion, it is good for young people because as young adults, we are trying to make it on our own, but we are burdened by such costs from rent, school tuition, and we all need to eat.

I was born with a birth defect called Spina Bifida, which is the incomplete closure of the spine. This leads me to my second reason on why I support the healthcare reform. Children who have a pre-existing condition such as mine will not be denied anymore. According to the March of Dimes, more than 150,000 children are born with birth defects. If we did not have that part in the legislation, I feel that more than 150,000 kids would not have health insurance.

As the life expectancy increases and the economy continues to tank, many older Americans will still be working. Many of these Americans will get sick sometime in their life. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will guarantee that insurance companies cannot drop someone because they are sick. I like this part of the legislation because I think it is personally unfair that you lose coverage because you get sick. It is unfair to drop them because many adults who get sick are sometimes single mothers who have children on their plan, and if you drop the parent, the kid will be without healthcare.

Even though I support the healthcare legislation, I feel that President Obama rushed this piece of legislation. I feel that if we spend $900 billion on healthcare reform, I feel we will be more in debt than ever before. I personally believe that Obama should have saved his healthcare plan for sometime after the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are completely over, as well as when we start creating jobs for people.

However, with that being said, I am happy that the healthcare legislation was passed, and I believe in the long run it will help millions of Americans, and we will be a more healthy and happy nation.