Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD) held a roundtable discussion with group of health care professionals, administrators and advocates at the Shore Medical Pavilion in Queen Anne’s County on Friday on the progress of the Affordable Care Act and the need to increase enrollment to make the system more cost effective.
“Put me down on the side that is glad Congress passed the ACA,” Cardin said. “I’m proud that millions of Americans have been able to be helped by it.”
In the video below, Cardin discusses the benefits of the ACA and the need for greater enrollment as a vehicle to make the system more efficient.
Cardin said he’s received hundreds of letters from constituents who’ve benefitted from the law since it was enacted four years ago.
“[These] are people who no longer have to worry about pre-existing conditions,” Cardin said. “The pre-existing conditions could have been the fact that you’re a woman, could have been the fact that you gave birth, could have been the fact that you’re victim of spousal abuse, could have been that you had asthma. All those were pre-existing conditions, and you didn’t have full coverage.”
In the video below, Cardin reads a letter from Kelly, a Maryland resident who after many years was finally able to afford insurance and manage her health care with “dignity.”
Cardin said medical bills would no longer be the cause of financial hardship.
“Medical bills were the leading cause of bankruptcy and that’s going to become a thing of the past,” Cardin said. “We now have affordable options. People can now afford to buy health insurance and you’re getting a quality product.”
Cardin also said the culture of preventative care is changing American health care from a “sick” system to a “health care” system that “keeps people healthy.”
Medicare has been extended by over a decade under the ACA with the elimination of the “donut whole,” Cardin said. “Many seniors had to decide whether they could literally afford their prescriptions or [they] had to cut a pill in half because they couldn’t afford it.”
Many of the benefits of the law are not controversial when you talk to people one-on-one, like parents who want to keep their adult age children insured until they’re 26 and the elimination the lifetime cap on coverage when you get sick, Cardin said.
He acknowledged the problems with the rollout of the Maryland Health Benefit Exchange but said enrollment so far of six million nationally had approached the March 31 target of seven million.
“The rollout of the exchanges was a disaster, I acknowledge that, it was terrible, no excuse for it,” he said. “We had an objective to get seven million enrolled in private insurance by the end of March [and] we’re at six million. We’re moving along and we’re getting people enrolled nationwide.”
He said while Medicaid enrollees had reached 250,000 in Maryland only 50,000 Marylanders had been enrolled in private insurance.
“We can do a lot better,” Cardin said. “When we say we’re not doing well, we’re sorry that we’re not going to have more people insured.”
“The system is going to work, it’s going to work a lot better than it did in the past, and next year we’ll have a lot more people in the system, and we will get to that point where the overwhelming majority are in the system and we can restructure the healthcare system and make it more cost effective.”
Fletcher Hall says
Editor,
Who is Senator Cardin trying to fool? As usual, the citizens of Maryland. Maryland’s Affordable Health Care website has been a disaster, and will cost Maryland taxpayer’s millions of dollars. The federal healthcare.gov. is the butt of late night T.V. comedian’s jokes.CItizens are confused, doctors, hospitals are confused. Changes are made daily, which many believe, are in unconstitutional ways.
It would seem that Senator Cardin is also confused,and again just following the current administration line. Senator Cardin needs to validate his figures and give his constituents throughout Maryland, the real facts.
Gren Whitman says
Editor,
Even though it’s the butt of jokes and despite its obvious flaws, the Affordable Care Act works, whether or not Mr. Hall thinks so.
It’s so bizarre for anyone to oppose a measure that provides decent and affordable health care for their fellow citizens!
Does Mr. Hall have a better idea?
Actually, I do have a better idea: extend Medicare to all.
If Medicare was offered to all who wish to enroll, 100 percent of Americans would be covered for basic health care and most of the present ACA problems would vanish.
Because I suspect that Mr. Hall would not like this proposal, does he have a better idea for providing basic healthcare for all?
Keith Thompson / WCTR says
Editor,
It seems that the obvious flaws are exactly what makes the ACA the butt of jokes, and it’s impossible to state that the ACA works because it has just been enacted (and the roll out has been shaky at best…shaky enough that a for-profit business off to a similar roll out likely couldn’t survive it).
As for the suggestion that Medicare be extended to all who want it…why? That indicates an attitude of folks getting something for nothing (free healthcare), which was largely the idea that initially sold many voters on the ACA in the first place. A more responsible suggestion is to extend Medicare to all who need it, with very specific guidelines as to what qualifies the need. It’s irresponsible to affect everyone else’s healthcare and insurance plans if we don’t need Medicare. I, for one, am still trying to figure out when health insurance plans went from being an employment benefit to an employer mandate.
I will say that the passage of the Affordable Care Act has one positive benefit and that more Americans now have a better understanding of the actual cost of medical care and insurance (as more of them have lost their current employer plans) and now realize that the idea of free healthcare is a myth. Perhaps this new understanding will now spur Americans to seek better solutions.