Our Editorial in the New York Times: "We Stand For Access"

As a member of the American Society of Law, Medicine & Ethics, I'm proud to add my name to this letter to the editor in the New York Times:

To the Editor:

We, many of the nation’s health law and health policy professors from law, medical, public health and graduate schools across the United States, write to address one of the most fundamental issues impacting our country: the potential repeal and replacement of the “Affordable Care Act” (“Obamacare”). It is clear that the House-passed “American Health Care Act,” as well as the legislation likely to be considered by the Senate, will cause severe, lasting harm to all of us, especially our society’s most vulnerable and middle class.

Today we raise our voices to oppose these proposals. While the Affordable Care Act has its shortcomings that should be fixed, the current proposals are merely “repeal,” with no effective “replace.” These proposals are wrong, and must be rejected. At a time when we are seeing significant declines in the number of uninsured and inadequately insured in our country, the House and Senate proposals represent a giant step backward. By cutting Medicaid funding, eliminating federal assistance for families securing private coverage, and encouraging individuals to either not purchase insurance or to buy barebones coverage, these proposals will result in a less equitable, less accessible system of health care. Ultimately, the public’s health will decline as needed care is forestalled or not sought, and costs will rise as a shrinking pool of Americans with “good” insurance pay more to subsidize those without.

Given the many health care challenges that we face— an aging population needing an increasing amount of health care services; a young and middle age population facing growing rates of obesity, heart disease, and other chronic conditions; a rapidly expanding “gig” economy of independent contractors needing to secure insurance without employer subsidies; and a rising number of individuals addicted to new and more prevalent illegal drugs— reducing access to health care services simply cannot be an acceptable policy option.

We also are deeply concerned about what this new legislation portends for women and children. Currently, the United States leads the developed world in maternal mortality. More women die during childbirth in the United States than in any other Western nation. Despite the urgency to protect women's health and strive for better outcomes, lawmakers have specifically targeted maternal health coverage for cuts.

The same is true for infants in the U.S, whose health care is also at risk with these proposals. Our nation ranks 50th in the world on infant mortality. By shifting more families off of Medicaid, and creating a larger uninsured and under-insured population, children’s access to health care services will decline.

The Affordable Care Act protects all Americans from discrimination based on preexisting conditions, expands coverage for mental health treatment and drug addiction, and fosters preventive care. Millions of Americans have health insurance for the first time, and we are at an all-time low in the percentage of citizens who lack coverage. The reform legislation under development proposes to wipe away these essential gains, returning Americans to the pre-Affordable Care Act era of coverage limitations and exclusions thwarting the provision of essential health care services.

In 1966, Dr. Martin Luther King explained to a group of health providers, "Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health is the most shocking and inhumane." We agree.