By Ed Diokno
Donald Trump may have found his hatchet man to do away with Obamacare and render Medicare and Medicaid ineffective. Trump’s choice of Rep. Tom Price, R-Georgia, for Secretary of Health & Human Services has drawn sharp criticism from some Asian Americans.
Price’s nomination signals the president-elect’s determination to give private health insurance a way to fatten their bottom line while doing away with the all the major health care benefits government has developed in the last 50 years.
In other words, the incoming administration appears to be ready and willing to destroy the American health care system as we know it.
Whose health coverage will be the most affected? Millions of seniors, low-income families and children, including many of the people who voted for Trump.
Asian Americans Advancing Justice opposes the nomination of Price. As a member of Congress, Rep. Price has been one of the lead critics of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) and has repeatedly attempted to repeal or gut the ACA.
Among Price’s most dangerous proposals are limiting tax credits for the poor, privatizing Medicare, barring federal funding to Planned Parenthood, and converting Medicaid to block grants which would pretty much negate its role as a safety net program.
Price and the Republicans want Medicare to whither away. Before Medicare was enacted in 1962, a whopping 48% of seniors lacked health insurance as opposed to only 2 percent today.
Despite overwhelming approval of Medicare by the American public, Price has been consistent in his ideological opposition. “Nothing has had a greater negative effect on the delivery of health care than the federal government’s intrusion into medicine through Medicare,” he said.
Since implementation in 2010, the ACA has given 20 million previously uninsured Americans access to critical health care services. Among the ACA’s success stories is the significant increase in health insurance coverage among Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPI). Repealing the ACA would likely double the uninsured rate to 19.4 percent and cost an estimated 24 million people their health coverage.
“The Asian American and Pacific Islander community has seen the greatest decrease in our uninsured rate–by 59 percent–under the ACA, the largest of any racial group nationally,” said Doreena Wong, director of Advancing Justice-LA’s health access program.”
“And consistently, AAPIs have expressed significant support for the ACA, even across party lines — for example, a poll in Spring 2016 found that 76 percent of Asian American voters supported the ACA, including 60 percent of those identified as Republican. A repeal of the ACA means that hundreds of thousands of our community members stand to lose critically needed health coverage,” said Wong.
Although Republicans plan to cut Medicaid — the primary program providing health care to low-income individuals , Price’s plans for Medicaid are even worse. His latest budget proposal would have repealed Medicaid expansion entirely, without replacing it.
Eventually, Republicans would phase out Medicaid, leaving the poorest to fend for themselves.
Advancing Justice also opposes Price because of his track record of supporting such anti-immigrant policies as voting to dismantle the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, to punish “Sanctuary Cities,” to deny citizenship to children born in the U.S. with undocumented parents, to eliminate the visa lottery for immigrants, and against the DREAM Act.AAAJ believes Price’s anti-immigrant record should disqualify him from leading HHS which, through its Office of Refugee Resettlement, is responsible for the work of resettling and integrating refugees as well as the care of unaccompanied minors apprehended by immigration officials.
Price’s proposals and past positions harm the most vulnerable Americans, such as those who are poor, elderly, or immigrant.