Local doctor, protesters ask Capito to vote against ACA repeal

March 17--An Oak Hill physician and several citizens are asking U.S. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito to vote against the American Health Care Act, a replacement health care plan that would repeal the Affordable Care Act.

Dr. Dan Doyle, Fayette County social worker Linda Stein and concerned citizens Sandra Wolf, Carol Workman of Beckley and Jean Evansmore of Mount Hope stood in frigid temperatures to demonstrate with signs outside Capito's North Kanawha Street offices.

"We are here today at Sen. Capito's office to tell her we want her to vote against the American Health Care Act, which would eliminate and endanger health care for at least 14 million Americans right away and hundreds of thousands of West Virginians right away," Doyle said.

Doyle reported particular concerns with portions of the bill which will impact senior citizens and those West Virginia families that have been impacted by the opioid addiction epidemic in the state.

The bill calls for the elimination of Medicaid expansion by 2020.

Doyle said the current American Health Care Act would be a "death blow" to opioid treatment programs that have started to treat addicts in the state.

"You might as well say, 'Take heroin. It's a lot cheaper, and we don't have to pay for it,'" Doyle summarized.

Officials at Recovery Point West Virginia, which operates four long-term, residential addiction recovery centers for men and women in three counties, reported in January that 98 percent of Recovery Point clients are enrolled in Medicaid through the ACA Expansion of Medicaid services.

Doyle said he's also bothered by portions of the bill which call for replacement of Medicaid with block grants and loss of protections for those with pre-existing conditions.

The GOP plan abolishes penalty taxes against those who are uninsured but imposes a 30 percent premium penalty for a lapse in coverage that lasts more than 63 days.

Doyle said the penalties are paid to insurance companies by those who lose coverage and then purchase it again, in the form of much higher premiums paid to insurance companies.

"It would allow people who have temporarily lost their insurance to have their premiums raised if they tried to get it back again," he said.

Senior citizens will be impacted, because the GOP plan will eliminate ACA Medicare benefits of preventative exams and chronic care management.

Seniors under Part D Medicare will be impacted, he said.

Prior to ACA passage in 2010, seniors under Medicare Part D were allowed a capped amount of medicine expenditures. Once they met that limit, Doyle said, Medicare stopped paying until seniors paid "a bunch of money out of your pocket."

ACA eliminated the "doughnut hole," but the GOP plan will do away with that elimination by 2020.

The proposed plan caps federal money per person in Medicaid. Medicaid serves low-income families, children, the disabled and pregnant women.

West Virginia currently gets matching federal funds for qualifying Medicaid spending.

Capito told MetroNews she had "deep concerns" about the impact of the current version of the bill on Medicaid expansion in West Virginia.

Evansmore, 76, said her daughter, a resident of Great Britain, has health care as a matter of course.

"What other country, in our kind of position, doesn't take care of you?" asked Evansmore, who grew up in Scarbro. "Health care is so basic.

"We don't choose to be sick. ... That's just the function of our bodies."

She challenged the idea that health care is a privilege for those who have the money to pay for medical care.

"I don't think health care should be linked to your income at all," said Evansmore. "You're a human being."

Workman, who has survived two cancers, had kept employer-provided insurance. During a gap in coverage as she changed jobs, she became ill and needed a surgery.

She said she had over $8,000 in medical bills, which she paid out-of-pocket for several years.

Workman supports a "single payer" system, in which state tax dollars pay for health care costs. Until then, she supports everyone having health insurance.

"People think medical costs are less than they are," she said. "It's practically impossible for anybody, with any income level, to pay.

"You have to have health insurance. Even young people and children can get cancer."

Doyle said that, in many cases, uninsured patients are unable to pay hospital bills at all, a situation ACA was helping to eliminate.

By law, emergency rooms must provide patient care, regardless of ability to pay.

"When a person had no money and no insurance and went in with a broken leg, and the bill was $10,000, they got a bill for $10,000," said Doyle. "This person who doesn't even make $20,000 a year gets a bill for $10,000.

"The hospital acts like that's real, and it's impossible," he said. "The patient's bankrupt; the hospital doesn't get the money. So ACA has been really good for (local hospitals)."

One young, male driver stopped a pick-up truck in traffic to heckle Evansmore and Workman, asking them for directions to a local hospital.

Capito and several more Republican lawmakers, including Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, have expressed doubts about the proposed legislation, which is sometimes called "Trumpcare" and was introduced on March 6.

"We're very hopeful that Sen. Capito will represent West Virginia well and take care of the people who live here, who risk losing their Medicaid," said Stein. "This is a state full of seniors who would not be able to afford health care coverage and who, if they had Medicaid, would lose it, probably."

Under the GOP plan, the ACA income-based subsidies on the ACA exchanges would be replaced with tax credits based on age and income.

The House Budget Committee advanced the bill in a 19-17 vote on Thursday.

A number of Republican senators have publicly opposed the bill.

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