NEW HAVEN, Conn. (WTNH) — As Republicans threaten to repeal the Affordable Care Act, Senator Chris Murphy stopped in New Haven Wednesday to talk with people about the law. He heard from people who have benefitted from it.
Isabelle Endicott’s 2-year-old son was born with a heart condition. A 3 week stay in the ICU cost almost half a million dollars. She told Murphy how the Affordable Care Act helped her family.
“I called our insurance and was relieved to find out that because of the Affordable Care Act, I did not need to worry about him being denied,” said Endicott.
Endicott was one of several people who met with Murphy at the Access Health CT New Haven Enrollment Center. For some, the law’s impact has been enormous.
“It keeps me alive,” said a man who suffers from cystic fibrosis. “Without it I probably wouldn’t be, within months.”
The fear is that if the law is repealed, young adults will not be able to stay on their parents’ plans. There is also a concern that women may be charged more for their plans than men. Many with preexisting conditions are worried too.
“If there was an outright repeal of access to [people with] preexisting conditions, there would be no insurer that would offer me coverage,” a man told Murphy.
Murphy has been speaking out about the need to protect and defend the Affordable Care Act. He believes repealing it would be disastrous. He says though it has been good for millions of people, it isn’t perfect.
“We should be working on fixing it, making it better – not repealing it and going back to the time when there were 20 million people without insurance in this country,” Murphy said.
The future of the law is still unclear, and many people are nervous about that.
“I am worried that if a repeal were to happen that my son could lose his insurance,” said Endicott.
Murphy fears that if the Affordable Care Act is repealed, emergency rooms would be filled with patients who don’t have insurance. He is concerned that the state budget would be bankrupt by the added cost of paying for their care.
