EDITORIAL: Looking for a cure for U.S. health care

Jan. 17--As the nation moves closer to a Friday event that millions eagerly anticipate and a similar number of million are dreading, one of the biggest challenges that will face President-elect Donald Trump and the Republican-led Congress will be how to deal with the Affordable Care Act.

The ACA includes good components -- pre-existing conditions can't keep you from getting insurance, and children up to age 26 can get coverage on their parent's policy. And it spread coverage to many lower-income people who didn't have it.

The Democratic-written ACA also had many flaws. Americans who earned too much money to qualify for federal subsidies found the forced cost -- determined by the U.S. Supreme Court to be a new tax -- onerous, both in terms of monthly premiums and annual deductibles. In regions like ours, there is little to no choice of carriers. Promises from the administration that individuals who were happy with the insurance policies they already had and the doctor they were seeing would be able to continue with both proved to be empty ones.

Meanwhile, people who are not being subsidized, whether through an exchange policy or through one they have at work, have seen their costs go up and coverage go down, sharply in numerous cases.

That is why the ACA has been a hot-button issue with many in the public. While U.S. health care indeed needed a booster shot, what has become Obamacare, as a medicine, came with unintended consequences.

What we thought back in 2010 and continue to believe now is this: U.S. health care needs to be addressed in a bipartisan, deliberate way with the well-being of all Americans -- not just a particular constituency -- at the heart of the process. The only special interest should be the interests of 300 million-plus Americans to access quality health care.

What is required to "cure" what ails health care in America is for Washington lawmakers and policymakers to get past the denial stage and move toward positive action.

With Republicans in charge of Congress and the White House, Democrats must resign themselves to the reality that, whether in small bits or big chunks, the GOP lawmakers have the means to scuttle the ACA. Likewise, Republicans need to understand that a reactionary move to a system that also was broken in many ways is not the answer.

A well-planned successor system needs to be in place before Republicans pull the plug on Obamacare.

Given the climate in Washington that has gotten so politically heated that it may actually be the real culprit behind global warming issues, it's probably a pipe dream, but we wish, just this once, Republicans and Democrats could sit down in a room and stopping pointing fingers and yelling at each other long enough to do some work on this issue that is critical to the health and well-being of each and every American. U.S. health care is bigger than one party or one ideology. Democrats made a grave mistake in 2010 when they did not involve Republicans in the process other than for show early on. Republicans need to put people ahead of pride and make sure they don't make the same mistake this time. No conservative or liberal has the market cornered on good ideas.

We need the best ideas from everyone -- conservatives, liberals, moderates, you name it -- to create a comprehensive, innovative American solution to an American concern. There will be plenty of places for our lawmakers to play all the politics they can stand in the coming years. The doctor's office should not be one of them.

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