Affordable Care Act benefits must be preserved

by Merilee Dannemann

“Pre-existing condition.” Remember that term? Fifteen years ago, you heard it all the time on the news. It was the issue that scared the daylights out of millions of Americans who couldn’t get health insurance, or whose insurance was impossibly expensive.

A pre-existing condition might have been asthma, diabetes, high blood pressure, cancer, a past injury, or any other condition that might increase the patient’s need for future health care.

Pre-existing conditions had been debated in Congress constantly and covered regularly on the news. People who needed health coverage the most, those who had been sick or injured, were being denied that coverage. 

If you haven’t heard the term in recent years, it’s because the problem was solved by the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. The ACA prohibits policies covered through its marketplaces from discriminating against clients who have pre-existing conditions, or charging those clients more. 

Pre-ACA policies also could put a lifetime cap on the client’s total benefits, so a person with a chronic or serious illness could use up a lifetime of benefits and be permanently cut off from future insurance. The ACA prohibits that also.

This is what the shutdown was about, and what Congress will be fighting over in a few weeks. Without federal subsidies, ACA insurance policies will be too expensive and millions of Americans will not be able to afford them.

On the other hand, I am very grateful to the eight Democratic United States senators who split from their caucus and voted to end the shutdown. I believe they did the right thing and were castigated by fellow Democrats unfairly.

The shutdown was causing too much damage. If it had gone on much longer, public sentiment might have turned against the ACA itself, because most Americans do not remember what made the ACA so important. 

During the shutdown, millions of Americans were losing access to SNAP benefits and at risk of going hungry. While here in New Mexico, the state stepped up to fill the gap, that was not true in every state.

While federal employees were being furloughed or forced to work without pay, Americans were losing access to the services those federal employees provide. That was not talked about nearly enough in the news coverage of the shutdown. While we all knew about the confusion at the airports, I worry about less publicized and unglamorous government functions like safety and food inspections. In some of those areas, Americans may be harmed but the public will never know what was missed. So I was relieved that it was over and thankful to those eight Democratic senators.

The shutdown itself was dreadful and should never have been necessary, but it did serve the purpose of making Americans understand about the urgent need to continue the subsidies for the Affordable Care Act. And the shutdown made it clear that Republicans are responsible for failing to help Americans meet their needs for access to health care. Republicans have had 15 years since the ACA was passed to come up with a better alternative, but have not done so.

Now the argument about restoring the tax credits for the Affordable Care Act will have to resume. Under the deal that ended the shutdown, Congress has agreed to vote on legislation to restore the ACA tax credits in December.

New Mexicans enjoy some protection in case Congress fails to pass the tax credit extensions. The legislation passed in the first special session this October was intended to mitigate the impact of federal cuts to the ACA and Medicaid.

But we’ll continue to have fights like these at the national level until policy makers develop a way to make health care more accessible and affordable to for all of us.

            Merilee Dannemann’s columns are posted at www.triplespacedagain.com. Comments are invited through the web site.

© 2025 by Merilee Dannemann

Read more by Merilee Dannemann published by New Mexico Jewish Journal.

Community Supporters of the NM Jewish Journal include:
Jewish Community Foundation of New Mexico
Congregation Albert
Jewish Community Center of Greater Albuquerque
The Institute for Tolerance Studies
Jewish Federation of El Paso and Las Cruces
Temple Beth Shalom
Congregation B'nai Israel
Shabbat with Friends: Recapturing Together the Joy of Shabbat
New Mexico Jewish Historical Society
Where the North Ends, A Novel by Hugo Moreno 

Policy Statement Acceptance of advertisements does not constitute an endorsement of the advertisers’ products, services or opinions. Likewise, while an advertiser or community supporter's ad may indicate their support for the publication's mission, that does not constitute their endorsement of the publication's content.

Copyright © 2025 New Mexico Jewish Journal LLC. All rights reserved.