Rep. Grijalva Op-Ed on the ACA’s 16th Anniversary: “Arizonans Want Affordable Healthcare, Not Endless Warfare”
Washington, D.C. - Congresswoman Adelita S. Grijalva penned an op-ed in The Herald/Review marking the 16th anniversary of when the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was signed into law, extending healthcare coverage to tens of millions of Americans across the country.
In the op-ed, Rep. Grijalva stresses the urgency of reversing Republican cuts to healthcare programs like Medicaid and Medicare, as well as extending ACA premium assistance, which could have been funded by the money the Trump Administration has spent on the war with Iran.
The full op-ed is copied below:
“Monday marks 16 years since the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was signed into law. Since its inception, more than 50 million Americans have been able to access healthcare thanks to the ACA, cutting the uninsurance rate in half. 133 million people with pre-existing conditions are now protected against coverage denials and caps on care due to cancer, diabetes, or heart disease.
Make no mistake, our healthcare system is still far from perfect. Millions of Americans are paying too much for their healthcare, are under-insured, or simply do not have coverage. I believe that health care is a human right – not a privilege reserved for those who can afford it. That is why I support passing Medicare for All and moving to a universal system that replaces today’s maze of private insurers with a system that puts patients first.
However, gutting the ACA, as Republicans have consistently proposed, is not the solution. Their refusal to extend ACA premium assistance, combined with provisions in Trump’s Big Ugly Law that slash Medicare and Medicaid, is already driving up premiums, shrinking coverage, and putting people’s health at risk. The price tag to extend ACA subsidies for one year would have been about $23 billion. For perspective, we have already spent somewhere between $15 and $40 billion on the war in Iran, with the Trump Administration asking Congress for an additional $200 billion.
Extending the subsidies would have prevented a 30% average increase in marketplace premiums in Arizona, resulting in 70,000 Arizonans choosing to drop their coverage altogether. These premium hikes come on the heels of Republicans passing the Big Ugly Law, which will drastically cut funding for Medicaid and Medicare over the next decade.
The impacts will be devastating for the 1.48 million low-income Arizonans on Medicaid and the 1.19 million Arizona seniors on Medicare. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects that the bill will cut $45 billion from Medicare this year alone and $536 billion through 2034. For Medicaid, the cuts are even more dire – with the program losing $1 trillion over the next decade, and a projected 10 million Americans losing coverage by 2034.
These programs were slashed to fund a $1 trillion tax cut for the richest 1% of Americans. Here in Arizona, Medicaid spending could decline by as much as $34 billion over 10 years. The Arizona Chamber Foundation, which advocates for Arizona businesses, found that for every $1 billion the state loses in Medicaid funding, the state will lose 36,000 jobs across multiple sectors, imperiling hospitals and clinics, especially those in rural areas.
The loss of funding aren’t just numbers on paper – they have real world impact. I recently learned about a 29-year-old mother of two in my congressional district who was diagnosed with HIV during her pregnancy. After funding cuts to community health centers led to staff reductions, she lost the medication adherence support that helped her stay on her lifesaving Valley Fever treatment – and as a result, she was hospitalized three times. This problem will be even more acute for rural communities including Bisbee and Nogales, where hospitals are now at risk of closing due to the cuts to Medicaid.
Republican cuts will push more people into already overburdened emergency rooms for uncompensated care, driving up healthcare costs for everyone. No one benefits when patients are forced to seek care only in crisis or receive a late-stage diagnosis because preventive services were out of reach. If we do not reverse these cuts, the consequences will be painful and costly for families across Arizona.
The American people want affordable healthcare, not endless warfare. Quality healthcare is a fundamental right, and we can, and must, do better. I will continue to fight for a system that provides healthcare as a human right for all of us – not just the wealthy few. We can start by immediately reversing Republicans’ cuts to Medicaid and Medicare, and ensure these programs have the funding they need to strengthen care for seniors, people with disabilities, and working families.”
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