Trump administration wants U.S. Supreme Court to repeal Affordable Care Act

Millions of Americans may be affected by the Trump administration’s requests of the U.S. Supreme Court to strike down the Affordable Care Act (ACA).

The White House claims the law is unconstitutional because Congress has since ended the tax penalty for not buying health insurance.

But what will this mean for those who provide health care services?

Susan Hook, the executive director and founder of Samaritan Heath and Wellness Center said, “We take care of anybody who walks through our door.”

And that number has been going up due to the effects of the coronavirus pandemic. “We’ve had new patients who have lost jobs and lost insurance,” said Hook.

And a new government study says the trends Hook is seeing are not isolated. Nearly 500,000 Americans, who lost their health insurance due to COVID-19, were able to sign up for some via healthcare.gov.

Loureen Downes, an associate professor at the School of Nursing at FGCU, said, “Having the health exchange to fall back on to get to coverage has helped a lot of people.”

Downes also asserts that replacing the ACA could be a blow to Floridians. “Annual wellness visits for elderly are covered with no copay. And other preventive services that were not previously covered before the Affordable Care Act is now covered for our elderly,” she said.

Repealing ACA could create an extra 1.5 million uninsured Floridians, according to the Urban Institute.

But, lucky for Florida and the rest of the United States, the change isn’t set to take place any time soon. “Even if the Supreme Court hears this motion it wouldn’t render a verdict until after the November election,” said Victor Claar, and associate professor of economics at FGCU.

And Hook believe the most important thing, regardless of what the government decides, is to give people the care they need. “We need to help the problem regardless of what the government’s doing and what the insurance industry is doing,” she said.