Democrats in Michigan are highlighting the Affordable Care Act (ACA), with an event held Wednesday in Lansing, and then several more leading up to Saturday’s anniversary of the landmark legislation.
Wednesday’s press conference was hosted by Protect Our Care Michigan, a nonprofit that promotes affordable health care, and contrasted the ACA’s positive impact amid a renewed effort by former President Donald Trump to repeal it if he wins a second term in November.
According to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), 21.3 million consumers nationwide signed up for ACA-related health insurance coverage in the latest open enrollment period, including 418,100 Michigan residents.
“We see Republicans in Congress working overtime to completely dismantle access to women’s reproductive care and vital preventive health care services,” said state Sen. Kristen McDonald Rivet (D-Bay City), who is running for Congress this year. “We see attempts to destroy the ACA and all of its protections for the over 100 million people with preexisting conditions and Republican allies in the courts continue attacking the ACA’s full coverage of preventative services like birth control and free breast cancer cancer screenings.”
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In January, McDonald Rivet announced she was running for Michigan’s 8th Congressional District seat, currently held by retiring U.S. Rep. Dan Kildee (D-Flint). Other Democrats seeking the nomination are State Board of Education President Pamela Pugh, Flint Mayor Sheldon Neeley, former Flint Mayor and Obama Administration appointee Matt Collier and Michigan Association of Conservation Districts Executive Director Daniel Moilanen.
On the GOP side, Paul Junge, who lost to Kildee in the 2022 election, and trucking company owner Anthony Hudson, have announced their candidacies. Dr. Martin Blank, a trauma physician at Covenant HealthCare and Saginaw police officer, dropped out of the race last month.
McDonald Rivet said she was particularly passionate about protection for women’s reproductive rights, noting that ACA marketplace plans must cover over 27 preventative services ranging from cancer screenings to pre and postnatal care without any copay.
“Sixty-six to 75% of women are able to access intrauterine devices, or IUDs, at no cost,” she said, calling it “critical contraceptive care.”
McDonald Rivet added that in states like Michigan which have expanded their Medicaid coverage through the ACA, there are approximately seven fewer maternal deaths per 100,000 live births than in states that chose not to expand the program.
“Insurance companies are required to fully cover breastfeeding supports and counseling, as well as breast pumps,” she said. “And the law makes it so women don’t have to rely on health care plans that don’t cover a fraction of the essential services women rely on every day.”
Saturday will mark 14 years since the ACA was signed into law by former President Barack Obama. More popularly referred to as Obamacare, the act provided several rights and protections to consumers while making health care coverage more affordable.
Chief among those protections that were noted at Wednesday’s event was the ACA prohibition on denying health care coverage due to a preexisting condition, which up to 50% of non-elderly Americans have, according to CMS.
Sharing a personal connection to that very issue was Raj Wiener, who served as the director of the Michigan Public Health Department (now the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services) in the 1980s.
Wiener said when her daughter turned 21, she was diagnosed with leukemia. Prior to the ACA, she would have been covered by their health insurance until she was 22.
“When the Affordable Care Act was enacted, we would’ve been able to keep her on our health insurance until she turned 26,” said Weiner. “And when she did get her own health insurance, she would be able to get it without being refused because of a preexisting condition. As parents, we have been so grateful for the enactment of this law. As you can imagine, it hit close to home. And for anybody in a similar situation, it would do that well today.”
Arick Davis is the co-founder of Last Mile Cafe in Grand Rapids, which at any given time can have between six and 10 employees. He said the ACA has given he and his wife a more solid footing to run their business by providing not just an affordable health plan, but one that is worth having.
“My biggest concern when I was going through and looking at the policies was, ‘Am I getting a policy? Is it actually going to cover anything? Is it going to cover preventative care? Is it not going to cover if I go to the emergency room?’” he said. “I think that was kind of the baseline level of gratitude to be able to go in and be like, ‘All of these options are going to offer the basics of what we need.’ And then from there we can go in and try to pick what more align to what we needed for our family.”
When the ACA passed in 2010, it did so without a single Republican vote in the U.S. House or Senate. State Sen. Kevin Hertel (D-St. Clair Shores) said the GOP opposition has continued from that day to now, without any real alternative.
“The replacement has not changed either, because they don’t have one,” Hertel told the Michigan Advance. “I think there will always be a reason people attack things for political reasons, but until they can show me something better, I think it’s just politics. It’s not actual policy.”
Hertel, who called the ACA the most consequential piece of health care legislation in his lifetime, said this anniversary in particular needs to be celebrated, with record levels of enrollment in Michigan and across the country.
“What that means is more people are getting covered across our communities, more access to care across our communities, and by giving people more access to preventative care, we’re driving down the cost of healthcare,” he said. “And so I think it’s critically important we talk about this, create awareness so that people know that they have this opportunity out there.”
Meanwhile, President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign is also planning a series of ACA anniversary events in Michigan, starting on Thursday in Lansing with Mayor Andy Schor and state Rep. Julie Brixie (D-Meridian Twp.), followed by events on Friday in Flint with ACA supporters and in Detroit with Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel.
Then on Saturday’s anniversary, there will be a gathering in Grand Rapids with U.S. Rep. Hillary Scholten (D-Grand Rapids) and Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan, who is a Biden-Harris 2024 National Advisory Board member.
The Biden-Harris campaign in a press release slammed Trump for trying to repeal the ACA while in office and said he continues to “campaign on a promise to take away health care protections for 100 million Americans with preexisting conditions like cancer, asthma, and diabetes.”
As vice president, Biden famously called the signing of the ACA a “big f—ing deal.” His campaign highlighted his health care efforts as president, such as lowering premium costs for the ACA and “taking on Big Pharma” by capping insulin at $35 a month for seniors.