Obamacare enrollees in California frightened about the future
Campos, a self-employed
But Trump's vow to repeal and replace the health care law has left the 50-year-old Campos in shock. "We just got started,'' he said. "Are we going to stop and go back to the way things were before?''
Campos is one of 1.4 million Californians who get their insurance from Covered California, the state's insurance exchange established under the 6-year-old Affordable Care Act, commonly called Obamacare. And the prospect of losing his health plan is sending shivers up and down his spine.
"This is like my worst fears coming true,'' Campos said of Trump's election and how it could jeopardize his health insurance. "I don't know what to expect, and it's hard to plan ahead when there is so much uncertainty. It's all very frustrating.''
On Friday, in interviews with the
But Campos doesn't trust Trump, calling him "unpredictable."
Healthcare experts, many of whom support the Affordable Care Act, say they can't be certain what the Republican-controlled
But there is one thing almost everyone -- even Obamacare's critics -- agree on: Whatever changes
"It will almost surely take most of 2017 for
Democrats are expected to have at least 46 senators, plus two independent senators who caucus with them.
The nonpartisan
Horwitz said there are parts of the law -- those that involve federal spending -- that can be overturned with a simple majority of the
Horwitz and other experts noted that even if Trump wants to keep the part of the law forbidding insurers from denying coverage to people like Campos who have pre-existing conditions, there's a catch.
"It isn't a feature that can stand alone,'' Horwitz said. "It requires that broad swaths of the population have coverage -- you can't run an insurance program with only sick people in it."
Health care experts are urging Californians to sign up for Obamacare coverage in 2017 during the current open enrollment period, which ends on
"Right now, the election has cast a big cloud of uncertainty over the open enrollment period that just got under way," said
About 3.8 million Californians also are enrolled under a provision of the law that allowed single adults without children to sign up for
"I went many years without insurance because I could not afford it,'' Levy said. "But my income is so up-and-down that if they nix the plan, that will hurt.''
On his website, Trump's plan suggests that he might want to turn the entire
Officials at Covered California, the state insurance exchange that has been held out as a national model, vigorously defend the law.
"What is happening in
Laszewski questions Lee's optimism.
"We are going to be starting over from scratch," the health policy analyst said of the
Not everyone enrolled in Obamacare is nervous about the coming storm.
"It took them a long time to get to this place -- it was something that was never done before,'' said Chery, who pays
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