Apr 23, 2015 2 min read

Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives, including this area’s congressmen Tim Murphy and Bill Shuster, have voted 56 times to either repeal the Affordable Care Act or to gut or restrict it. Though a repeal of the act, also known as Obamacare, is highly unlikely under the current administration, who knows what might happen after the 2016 presidential election.

Although the act has many drawbacks, it has resulted in 11.7 million more Americans gaining health insurance, according to government figures. As of Feb. 22, 472,697 Pennsylvanians were enrolled in health care plans through Obamacare. And 80 percent of them qualified for an average tax credit of $226 per month.

Republicans have yet to come up with an alternative to Obamacare, yet they continue to strive to eliminate it. A repeal of the act would mean that those nearly half a million Pennsylvanians would see their subsidies disappear, and many would lose their insurance either because they could no longer afford it or because insurance companies would again be free to deny them coverage based on risk.

Some supporters of repeal claim that the uninsured already receive free care at emergency rooms, which is anything but true. Hospitals cannot refuse to treat the uninsured, but they will bill them for that care nevertheless, and at the ridiculously inflated rates that insurance companies negotiate downward. And the hospitals and their collection agencies will dun and harass those uninsured patients until those bills are paid.

Our representatives have boasted about their votes to repeal Obamacare. Should that ever happen, what will they say to the thousands here who will be suddenly without health insurance and vulnerable?