By Audrey Sheppard. According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, if the Affordable Care Act is repealed, as the Republican House has voted to do, it would have negative consequences on the economy, and on the tens of millions of citizens who would remain uninsured. While communicating the measure’s good points left Democrats and advocates with a heavy lift in 2010, national polling is beginning to show Americans understanding and better appreciating the law.  Prospects are for increased popularity in 2011 and beyond. 

This is understandable, as provisions that benefit our friends, family, neighbors – ourselves – begin to kick in, and forthcoming provisions are better understood. Are you a parent who has worried that your son or daughters, a young adult, stay well because he/she is uninsured? Now, you breathe easier as she remains on your insurance until age 26, finishing grad school and landing her first real job.

In the past, you or a loved one could fall into the “donut hole” of steep prescription drug expenses. Under the measure, help is on the way.

You or someone you care about deeply might be one of the millions of Americans who can not get insurance, is dropped just when you need the coverage, or is placed in a high risk pool due to a preexisting condition. There are few things worse than being told you are no longer insurable; estimates are that 100 million Americans have pre-existing conditions. Already, the new law requires children with these conditions to be insured, and when the law is in full force, this will apply to adults as well. As long as the law is not repealed, help is truly on the way!   

The strong pro-consumer provisions above, and some others, are beginning to win popular favor, and also grudging support from some in Congress who just voted for repeal. Rep. Jim McDermott (D-WA) is quoted in the January 20^th edition of the Washington Post as telling his GOP colleagues “Why don’t we just settle down and we can make some amendments to this bill? I’m sure there are some things you’d like. But throwing it away is a political farce.”

We all know that repeal was not the real deal, as it lacks support in the Senate, not to mention with the public. Backstopping that certainty is the President’s veto pen. As physician/psychiatrist Jim McDermott diagnosed accurately, let’s stop this farce – and get real, people.  No law is perfect, and some tweaking may be in order.

Memo to the new Congress: we are watching. Your time is needed on economic priorities, not pointless grandstanding – and not undoing important progress toward America’s better health.

By Audrey Sheppard. The first time I saw it on television I thought my eyes and ears were deceiving me. The images, the message, were just too ghastly to absorb.  A television ad features five women doctors, black stethoscopes and white coats all, each  identified by name, state and specialty.  One after another, they get right to it:  “The Republicans won the election because they listened. The American people made it clear that repealing ObamaCare is a top issue. And now, they have a mandate to do just that.”

They go further: “What matters now is whether they are serious about repeal. We voted for you for a reason. We’re counting on you. Fulfill the mandate we gave you,” the doctors urge, referring to candidates who are heading to Congress. It concludes by urging women to overturn President Obama’s government take-over of the health care system and sign the ObamaCare Repeal Pledge. On the Saving Our Health Care.org website, activist training, pledges, updates on lawsuits and much more are offered.

How did sixty years of effort to bring health care within reach for tens of millions of Americans who go now without, to provide coverage for young people on their family’s insurance until the age of 26, to clamp down on discrimination against those with pre-existing conditions, result in what is no doubt an opening salvo from and to the women of our country?

Of course some individual doctors oppose THE PATIENT PROTECTION AND AFFORDABLE CARE ACT but the American Medical Association and most other physician groups support it. Trying to give the impression that women doctors of various specialties, states of the union, ages, races, shapes and sizes unite to oppose greater access to health care is downright dishonest. Ask the American Medical Women’s Association, THE national organization of women docs, who have been strongly supportive.

When I got out of college, hardly a woman was welcomed to medical school classrooms. Fortunately that has changed radically, along with the opening up of many other professions in the decades since. Strongly supportive of efforts to see that the talents of  one-half the population are not wasted, I’ve labored to get women elected to local, state and national office. As a small critical mass of women has been elected to state legislatures, Congress, county and state executive offices, they have tackled long-neglected issues that directly affect the health and well-being of families; I subscribe to the notion that there are differences between women and men and that often women’s world view leads to greater compassion for other humans. So how is it we have a whole organization of women, appealing to women  -with women spokespeople – turning their backs on the uninsured, those with pre-existing conditions, those who will benefit from a more level playing field in the healthcare market? It’s a plan that objective budget and economic experts say will save, not spend, additional funds. (more…)