Waiting for Trumpcare: ‘Are you OK with me dying?’
He gets it that they want change. But as a man battling leukemia and other health problems that have sometimes cost more than
"I tell them, 'If I can't get insurance, are you OK with me dying?' " Scott said. "No one can argue with that."
In the wake of a stunning election win, President-elect Trump's core campaign promise to "repeal and replace" Obamacare now collides with the messy reality of carrying it out.
More than 20 million people who gained coverage under the Affordable Care Act, including more than 1.5 million in
But many fear they will lose coverage or government help to cover costs.
On Tuesday came news Trump plans to nominate
Trump called the former orthopedic surgeon "exceptionally qualified to shepherd our commitment to repeal and replace Obamacare and bring affordable and accessible healthcare to every American."
Scott, 42, of Greenacres, said there's no way he can pay for his care without insurance, and without some kind of system to make it affordable to someone on a middle-class income, he said.
For Trump, promising to put a hit on Obamacare turned out to be the easy part. That drew cheers from a parade of Affordable Care Act critics, from small businesses to taxpayer advocates to consumers making too much money to get government aid in the form of tax credits to blunt rising rate hikes.
It's good news for anyone who does not believe the government should be able to force individuals to buy health insurance or face a penalty.
Yet details on how Trump and a
When Scott's wife Missy heard the election results, "I was scared to death," she said. "How do we pay?"
It's a discussion in hushed tones. All want life to go on as normally as possible for the family's twins -- son Hayden, 11, and daughter Sophie -- and daughter Hannah, 8.
"It's very scary to be sick as a young person with young kids,"
Days after the election, Trump began to step away from absolute opposition to the health law.
He said he liked parts of it, such as barring insurers from refusing people with pre-existing conditions. Another provision he favors: letting children stay on their parents' policies until age 26.
"Either Obamacare will be amended, or repealed and replaced," Trump said, introducing a new option that didn't get much airing in pre-election stump speeches.
"We cannot afford to tweak Obamacare -- that's a terrible idea," Scott told
He allowed that "we will need to unwind it in a fair way" but "we absolutely must repeal it."
Later, Scott said keeping the elements Trump mentioned "makes some sense," though "exchanges, the mandates, the taxes, that's the real thing that has to be changed."
The trouble is, taking some of Obamacare's carrots without the sticks may not prove easy.
It leaves insurers forced to take sick patients without the health law's provisions that aimed to spread the cost by requiring virtually everyone -- including young, healthy people -- to buy insurance, or pay a penalty.
With the prospect that fewer people may be required to pay into the system -- and uncertainty about a whole maze of rules including limits on what insurers can charge sick people -- it's an agonizing wait for millions to see what happens to their coverage and their lives.
"The fact is, there is still a lot to be learned about what policy changes will be proposed," said Kristine Grow, spokeswoman for for
The administration's transition website says: "A
The incoming administration says it will "work with both
Before Obamacare, 35 states had such pools, but they often faced spiraling costs, about half of which had to be covered by the states, according to published reports.
One proposal advanced by
In state pools, sick people faced premiums up to 250 percent higher than healthy folks, plus deductibles as high as
That's why the details matter so much to people like
"Not knowing is the worst," he said. "It's terrible."
Trump spokesman
More than 1.5 million Floridians get health coverage through the Affordable Care Act marketplace, the largest number in any state using the federal exchange, healthcare.gov. About nine in 10 of those Floridians get subsidies in the form of tax credits designed to make premiums more affordable. About 80 percent pay
The law affected the whole health care landscape, though, regardless of whether consumers purchased policies on or off government exchanges. For example, it blocked insurers from setting lifetime dollar limits on coverage.
Nationally, the uninsured rate has dropped below 10 percent for the first time, federal officials say.
What now?
"If the new
Vice President-elect
Another piece of Obamacare drew praise from former Republican presidential candidate and neurosurgeon
Shortly before speaking to doctors in
ACOs are groups of medical providers who are rewarded for providing high-quality care to
"Whether we do it under the umbrella of this program or that program is not important," Carson said. "That we get it done effectively is important."
For advocacy groups like Florida CHAIN (Community Health Action Information Network), which pushed for more people to get coverage, "there is some grief, frankly," said former state Rep.
Cuts in its funding from organizations favoring
"The rhetoric was repeal and replace but we never really heard what that meant," Pafford said. "That's thrown everyone into mass confusion."
"You can't just let a nation full of people who are sick die," he said. "He'll go down as the worst president in history."
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