Ralliers cry: Trump, GOP ‘threaten America’ with Obamacare repeal

La Crosse Tribune (WI)

Jan. 16--Saying he felt "a little bit like Paul Revere," Dr. Robert Freedland told about 200 people at a health care rally Sunday in La Crosse, "I'm here to warn you that the Republicans are coming ... with a threat to America" to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

Freedland was one of several speakers at the gathering in Cameron Park, one of dozens of such assemblies across the United States Sunday on the "Save Our Healthcare National Day of Action" Democrats had called for in the run-up to president-elect Donald Trump's inauguration Friday.

President Barack Obama's administration had experienced just a short time in which he was able to pass legislation despite Republican resistance, and the ACA came during that period, Freeland said.

"The ACA is such a strong piece of legislation that it was a major source of bringing the country out of a financial disaster," said Freedland, an ophthalmologist at Mayo Clinic Health System-Franciscan Healthcare in La Crosse.

Rebutting Republican claims that Obamacare would be a job-killer, Freedland said, "It created jobs (in states) that accepted Medicaid expansion, unlike Wisconsin."

Freedland also rejected Republican initiatives to radically reorder Social Security, arguing instead to shore it up.

"Even Donald Trump could get a few dollars more (in Social Security payments). He might even need it -- we don't know," he said in a reference to Trump's refusal to reveal his tax returns, as one of the ralliers hollered, "He doesn't pay taxes."

Another speaker, Robin Tschumper of La Crescent, Minn., told of her frustration with insurance after suffering a stroke in 2003.

"I was a very active 48-year-old" with a healthy history, she said. "But now I have pre-existing conditions" that put her in a high-risk pool, with an annual premium of $12,000 and a $5,000 deductible.

Despite the fact that the premium for her and her husband under the ACA is $1,000 a month, the law's premium tax credit brings that down to $200, said Tschumper, a former professor at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, where she taught therapeutic recreation.

"Paul Ryan wants to put us all into a high risk pool," she said, in light of Republican steps last week toward repealing and replacing Obamacare. "Been there -- done that. It doesn't work."

While the ACA "might benefit from tweaking, it's not broken," she said, adding the old saw, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

Tschumper recalled that few students had health insurance when she taught at UW-L, Winona State University and other colleges, but Obamacare changed that with the stipulation that children be allowed to remain on their parents' plans until the age of 26.

"I love Obamacare," she said, a mantra she repeated several times.

State Rep. Jill Billings, D-La Crosse, noted that "creative and sustainable democracy is not a passive endeavor -- not an armchair sport" and urged people to become involved in the fight to preserve Obamacare.

Billings criticized the intent of Trump and other Republicans to repeal and replace the ACA, insisting that there is no apparent plan to replace it.

"We don't know what that plan is, and I don't think he does, either," Billings said.

Billings listed some of several facets of Obamacare that have helped 20 million previously uninsured people obtain coverage, such as the inclusion of pre-existing conditions, coverage for children and the elimination of lifetime limits for catastrophic illnesses.

"It protects savings, it protects health and it saves lives," she said.

Billings and other speakers also attacked Republican attempts to defund Planned Parenthood, saying that would leave many without any source of health care.

Planned Parenthood served 60,000 patients last year, 50,000 of whom were eligible for Medicaid, said Beth Hartung, former executive director of Options Health Clinic (now Essential Health Clinic) and president of the Wisconsin Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association.

Planned Parenthood "keeps them healthy and strong financially and emotionally," Hartung said.

Family planning clinics are an essential part of a health safety net that also includes Medicare and Medicaid, Hartung said.

"If you take one away, the others can't absorb the patients," she said.

One of the rally participants, Gretchen Cook of La Crescent, who carried a large, upside-down American flag, explained that that is the accepted signal for distress, a state health care would experience if Obamacare were repealed.

Cook said her late father, Robert, was a Marine and other family members have been or are in the service.

"Both sides of my family have fought in every war since the Revolutionary War, and I can fly it however I want," she said. "I've had to explain it to quite a few people."

Cook noted an irony in her daughter-in-law's being from Russia. Her son was working three jobs but still did not have health insurance to cover her pregnancy -- so she had to go to Russia to have the baby, where the delivery was covered, she said.

"Russia's health care did a very good job," Cook said, acknowledging, "I don't know if it covers everybody that way -- she had a very good job."

The former college professor, Tschumper, said, "The bottom line is that Americans need access to health care. And that means everybody," no matter the color of their skin, their heritage or their immigration status.

"We are all just one accident or mosquito bite away from a health care crisis," she said.

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