{"id":27099,"date":"2017-12-27T16:05:00","date_gmt":"2017-12-27T16:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=27099"},"modified":"2017-12-27T16:05:00","modified_gmt":"2017-12-27T16:05:00","slug":"mend-dont-end-the-affordable-care-act","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=27099","title":{"rendered":"Mend, don&#8217;t end the Affordable Care Act"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/ACA.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-27100\" src=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/ACA-300x203.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"203\" srcset=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/ACA-300x203.jpg 300w, https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/ACA-768x520.jpg 768w, https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/ACA-1024x693.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/ACA.jpg 1440w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Donald Trump believes congressional Republicans and Democrats are going to find a way to craft a new national health care insurance plan.<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s a bold prediction, Mr. President, given the record so far.<\/p>\n<p>GOP and Democratic lawmakers couldn&#8217;t agree on the time of day, let alone a fix to the Affordable Care Act. The president didn&#8217;t help any search for common ground, mainly because he couldn&#8217;t articulate any reasonable alternatives to the ACA. Congress tried twice to &#8220;repeal and replace&#8221; the ACA, but face-planted over arguments over the cost &#8212; and the impact any replacement would have on Americans&#8217; future health insurance availability.<\/p>\n<p>I continue to believe that a total repeal of the ACA is unnecessary and draconian. Millions of Americans now have health insurance who couldn&#8217;t afford it before. Every alleged alternative to the ACA has been deemed too harsh and too punitive.<\/p>\n<p>I share the thoughts of many analysts who say that if Medicare and Social Security &#8212; to other landmark legislative achievements &#8212; can be tinkered and tweaked to make them necessary to Americans&#8217; way of life, so can the ACA.<\/p>\n<p>Whether the president&#8217;s prediction comes true will depend on whether Republicans &#8212; who want desperately to remove Barack Obama&#8217;s name from this achievement &#8212; are willing to improve the ACA, rather than destroy it.<\/p>\n<p>Mend it. Don&#8217;t end the Affordable Care Act.<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Donald Trump believes congressional Republicans and Democrats are going to find a way to craft a new national health care insurance plan. That&#8217;s a bold prediction, Mr. President, given the record so far. GOP and Democratic lawmakers couldn&#8217;t agree on the time of day, let alone a fix to the Affordable Care Act. The president &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=27099\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Mend, don&#8217;t end the Affordable Care Act<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[131,540,1424,3376],"class_list":["post-27099","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-medical-news","tag-aca","tag-barack-obama","tag-donald-trump","tag-obamacare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27099","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27099"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27099\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27101,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27099\/revisions\/27101"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27099"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27099"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27099"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}