This afternoon I joined a White House conference call with Stephanie Cutter and others to discuss the Affordable Care Act - the health care reform package pushed forward by President Obama and supported by the National Council of Churches and other religious leaders - that the U.S. House will consider repealing next week.
What would happen if reform was repealed? Cutter wrote today on the White House website:
Since the Affordable Care Act was signed into law, the economy has created over 1 million private sector jobs. The unemployment rate is 9.4%, lower than it was in March 2010—9.7%. In the period during and right after the enactment of the law, the economy grew by 2.7%. Consumer confidence in a range of areas have improved, including retail and food sales by 4%, and auto sales by 7% since the enactment of the law. Slowing the growth of health care costs—as the Affordable Care Act does—will have the likely impact of creating more jobs since businesses will have to spend less on health care for their employees. This reduction could create more than 300,000 additional jobs. The law widely expands coverage to Americans, thereby reducing the hidden tax of about $1,000 that families with insurance pay each year in additional premium costs to cover the uncompensated costs of the uninsured. The law reduces small businesses’ health care expenses by giving them $40 billion worth of tax credits,and through the creation of new, competitive state-based insurance Exchanges. Exchanges will enable individuals and small businesses to pool together and use their market strength to buy coverage at a lower cost, the same way large employers do today, giving them the freedom to launch their own companies without worrying whether health care will be available when they need it. The law will lower the deficit by over $100 billion this decade and by over $1 trillion in the following decade.
It is important that people write their members of Congress today in support of the Affordable Care Act. Repeal would cause over 30 million Americans to lose their health care coverage, would increase private insurance costs, and add over $200 billion to the budget deficit, according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office.
