At a press meeting in Madison on Monday for the Harris-Walz campaign, Sen. Kelda Roys, D-Madison, talked about the Affordable Care Act and the importance of health care in Wisconsin.
“Very important things are at stake for people in Wisconsin, especially when it comes to our health care.” Roys said, “The Affordable Care Act was only one vote away from being overturned in the US Senate, which would have left millions of people without health insurance.”
The Affordable Care Act, also known as “Obamacare,” is a health care law that was signed into law by former President Barack Obama in 2010.
The Affordable Care Act set up marketplaces where premiums could be lowered and let states include more families on Medicaid whose incomes were between 100% and 400% of the government poverty level.
Under the Affordable Care Act, Medicaid has grown in forty states and the District of Columbia. WI hasn’t done that yet.
A study from the U.S. Treasury Department says that since it was signed into law, the Affordable Care Act has covered 806,000 Wisconsinites.
This year, a record amount of people, including 266,000 Wisconsinites, signed up for subsidies under the Affordable Care Act.
Whitman Bottari, Communications Director of the College Democrats of UW-Madison and a junior at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, joined Roys and said she is “terrified” about what might happen to health care if former President Donald Trump gets another term in office.
He said, “That’s why I’m here in Madison today—to sound the alarm for students like me who are trying to decide who to vote for in November.”
Trump led the charge in 2017 to get rid of the Affordable Care Act’s individual and company mandates. The plan passed in the U.S. House but not in the U.S. Senate.
The late Sen. John McCain, a Republican from Arizona, gave the one vote that stopped the plan from getting to Trump’s desk.
“I remember taking care of Judy, who had a long-term blood disorder, before the ACA.” “At every visit, we had to talk about what parts of her care she could afford,” said Dr. Sophie Kramer, a general care doctor and clinical assistant professor at the School of Medicine and Public Health at UW-Madison. “This means life or death for the people I take care of.”
The conference turned the attention to the attempts by the state legislature, which is controlled by Republicans, to roll back the important health care law.
“Let’s be clear: Trump isn’t the only one, right?” Roys said, “The Wisconsin GOP delegation in Congress is on board with this plan.” “Affordable Care Act was called a disaster by State Sen.
Duey Stroebel, who voted to stop it from going into effect.” Another extreme senator, Joan Ballweg, tried to get our attorney general to fight to get rid of the Affordable Care Act.
The Harris-Walz campaign held a similar Affordable Care Act press meeting in Green Bay on Monday, before Vice President Kamala Harris’s trip to Wisconsin on Friday.
The goal of the campaign is to gain ground in Wisconsin, which is a key battleground state before the November 5 election.