A Stark Contrast Between Champ Barack Obama and Chump Mitt Romney on Health Care
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Yesterday the Supreme Court ruled to uphold the Affordable Care Act — a historic ruling to protect the greatest advancement for women’s health in a generation.
After a two-year legal battle, the Court’s decision to uphold the law will have a tremendous impact on the millions of women and families who will no longer have to worry about the cost of getting sick (and the cost of staying well). Because of President Obama, affordable, quality care became a priority among our leaders in Washington. For his leadership on health care reform, we’re giving him our Champ title!
As Obama said yesterday, “I know there will be a lot of discussion today about the politics of all this, about who won and who lost. That’s how these things tend to be viewed here in Washington. But that discussion completely misses the point. Whatever the politics, today’s decision was a victory for people all over this country whose lives will be more secure because of this law and the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold it.” He’s exactly right. The real world significance of the decision is millions of women and their families who will now benefit, despite the incredible roadblocks.
Even though the law doesn’t fully take effect until 2014, millions are already benefitting. Forty-five million women are already receiving coverage for preventive health screenings with no co-pays, including lifesaving breast cancer screenings (and those numbers will only increase), and 3.1 million young adults — including young women, who are more likely to be uninsured than any other age group — have already been able to stay on their parents’ insurance until age 26. Perhaps most important, women will can no longer be discriminated against — insurers will not be able to charge higher premiums nor will pregnancy be considered a pre-existing condition.
But the opponents couldn’t wait even an hour to continue fighting to take away these benefits: Speaker John Boehner tweeted less than 30 minutes after the decision, “Today’s ruling by the Supreme Court underscores the urgency of‪#fullrepeal‬ of ‪#ObamaCare‬ http://j.mp/LFJTni ‪#4jobs‬.” And Governor Mitt Romney, whose health care law in Massachusetts served as the model for Obamacare, made clear his position:
“What the Court did not do on its last day in session I will do on my first day if elected President of the United States. And that is I will act to repeal Obamacare.” So he wants to take away all those benefits listed above.
Romney has pledged to repeal the Affordable Care Act on day one. The fact that one in five women of reproductive age (15-44) is uninsured, that women pay 68 percent more than men for out-of-pocket medical costs (due in large part to their reproductive health needs), and that in 2009 more than half of women delayed or avoided preventive care because of its cost doesn’t seem to faze Romney.
He offered no solutions and no explanations of how he would work to make health care more affordable. His goal is to repeal the law and go back to the days when pregnancy could be considered a pre-existing condition and insurance companies could discriminate against you because of your gender.
Instead of moving forward, Romney wants to go back. If that isn’t a true quality of a chump, I don’t know what is. Mitt Romney truly is our Chump of the week.
