Donald Trump’s presidential win all but guarantees the health care lawn known as “Obamacare” will be eliminated.
“We are going to repeal and replace Obamacare,” said Trump during a recently campaign stop in Tampa.
But just hours after Trump’s win, several USF students were buying health insurance through the national marketplace with the guided help of USF Health Navigators in the campus Student Center.
“We are still signing people up for 2017 coverage, they still need to have it. There’s still penalties if you don’t have coverage,” warned Jodi Ray of USF Health.
Ray tells ABC Action News that she fears an end to the Affordable Care Act will hurt many students who benefit from some key components of the law, such as allowing students to stay on their parents plans until age 26, protecting them from losing coverage due pre-existing conditions, and protecting women from being charged more just because of their gender.
“They’re popular components of the Affordable Care Act and important components because they’ve had a large impact on people either being able to retain or obtain coverage,” says Ray.
About 20 million more people are able to get health insurance because of the ACA, but the program has caused considerable strife for some small business owners in the Tampa Bay Area, like Diane Schleicher.
Schleicher owns and runs her family’s equipment logistics business called Arroyo Process Equipment, and providing health insurance to their 30 employees has grown much more expensive because of Obamacare, she says.
“My medical insurance for my employees went from $16,000 to $26,000 a month just when Obamacare came in,” says Schleicher to ABC Action News.
She voted for Trump in part because she wants to see Obamacare gone. But also says she want whatever plan replaces Obamacare to address the rising costs of medical care in general.
“When you have to take your child to the emergency room and a half hour stint is $5,000 or $10,000 that’s crazy,” Schleicher.
