EDITORIAL: Many voters want ACA expanded

Nov. 11--As Republican politicians keep trying to dismantle the Affordable Care Act (aka "Obamacare"), the people they represent keep sending signals they support expanded health coverage.

Maine voters approved a ballot measure Tuesday to expand the state's Medicaid program under the ACA. The vote was a rebuke of Maine's Republican governor, who five times vetoed legislation that would have authorized the expansion.

About 80,000 additional Maine residents are expected to become eligible for Medicaid as a result of the referendum. Maine will be the 32nd state to expand Medicaid under the ACA, but the first to do so by voter initiative.

At the same time, record levels of sign-ups for ACA insurance plans are being reported. A recent report by TheHill.com found the number of people signing up for plans more than doubled on Nov. 1, the first day of the open enrollment period, as compared to last year.

But keeping up enrollment numbers will be a challenge. After the Republican-controlled Congress failed to repeal the ACA, the Trump administration has turned to underhanded tactics to undermine it.

Now some Republicans are seeking to further weaken the ACA by repealing its individual mandate to buy insurance as part of their tax-cut plan. Trump tweeted last week in support of the idea, which is backed by some conservatives.

Repealing the mandate would lead to 15 million fewer people getting insurance over a decade and cause premiums to increase 20 percent, according to the Congressional Budget Office. It would skew the group of those getting coverage toward older and sicker people, threatening to destabilize the insurance market.

Here in Florida, about 1.7 million people have purchased health insurance through the ACA exchange. The measure has helped Florida reduce its uninsured rate to 12.6 percent in 2016 from about 20 percent just three years earlier.

Even more Floridians would be covered if the state had expanded Medicaid. Hundreds of thousands of the state's residents fall in a coverage gap in which they aren't poor enough to qualify for Medicaid but don't earn enough to qualify for subsidies for plans bought through the ACA exchange.

A poll earlier this year found more than two-thirds of Florida voters surveyed were in favor of Medicaid expansion. But Gov. Rick Scott and conservative Republicans in the Legislature have helped doom any hope of legislation being passed to authorize an expansion here, despite the federal government's commitment to picking up all of the tab now and 90 percent after 2020.

With Maine voters approving the expansion there, groups in Idaho and Utah are considering their own initiatives. Floridians also should consider taking the issue into their own hands and send a signal to the politicians who are supposed to represent them that they want expanded health coverage, not schemes causing more people to be uninsured.

This editorial first appeared in the Gainesville Sun, a News Herald sister paper with GateHouse Media.

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