Over 45,000 Americans die each year because they cannot access/afford appropriate medical attention---this according to a 2009 Harvard study quoted by a Canadian physician/public health expert when she utterly destroyed Sen. Burr of N.C. during a Senate hearing last week.
Perhaps he should have been back in eastern N.C. taking a look at what Duke Energy has left on the river bottoms of the Dan and the Cape Fear. Not, of course, given his record, that he cares.
What Mr. Davis and Ms. Haley and other obstructionists want to do is make it as difficult as possible for South Carolinians to access health insurance through the ACA. They discourage citizens from searching for policies by their constant criticism of the law. Then, if citizens get past being discouraged, Davis, Haley & Co. make every attempt to keep them from being able to access the information they need. Which means thousands aren't able, for a variety of reasons, to access the ACA information. Which means thousands still aren't getting the medical attention they require. Which means South Carolina loses its share---and, more than its share, given the sad state of public health in our state---of those 45,000 people who die every year for lack of access to appropriate medical attention.
Find out what's happening in Irmo-Seven Oakswith free, real-time updates from Patch.
When they tell you that they want to ban the use of state resources in assisting people to access healthcare insurance through the ACA, what they're really telling you is that they want to ban the use of state resources in assisting people---many of them sick and suffering and dying---to access affordable, credible healthcare.
And they offer to these people no credible options. None. Not one. Got that? None. Not one.
Find out what's happening in Irmo-Seven Oakswith free, real-time updates from Patch.
And, please, don't embarrass yourself by repeating the bogus rhetoric about Haley's bogus plan for free clinics, etc.---even if she did it, which she won't, it would be nothing more than a Band-Aid within reach of only a few South Carolina residents.
A woman who needed a $70,000 surgery to take out a fibroid tumor in her uterus that has resulted in almost constant bleeding---and other untold misery---for over two years couldn't get that surgery at one of Haley's promised "free clinics" even if they existed. Uninsured, she couldn't get that surgery unless she had been able to come up with $70,000. Her best hope, given her finances, was to find a policy on the ACA exchanges.
But she had heard nothing other than negative messaging about the ACA, had no idea how to operate a computer and/or access a federal exchange, had no one in state government who could help her. So, she continued a downhill slide during which she lost a bit or a piece of her life every day.
But this real-time story has a happy ending.
After her daughter and I harassed her for several months to go to the exchanges and look for a policy, she finally, in February, with the help of her daughter (a banker in Charlotte who is computer literate), found that policy. She pays $108/month after her subsidies kick in. It has a $500 deductible. It has the standard $6,500/year cap on any out-of-pocket expenses. It has the standard no-cap-on-out-of-pocket expenses for her entire lifetime. And, of course, thanks to the ACA, pre-existent conditions are irrelevant.
She had her surgery on March 12th. She is now at home recovering, doing great, feeling great and ready to get back to her innumerable part-time jobs cleaning houses (including mine) and taking in sewing (including mine) and doing whatever she has to do to continue to proudly live an active and great life on her own.
In contrast to the debunked ACA "horror stories" put on the air and then quickly taken down by an embarrassed GOP, this is an ACA "success story" that will pass media scrutiny with flying colors---heck, the woman is a Republican and she doesn't particularly like President Obama.
But she likes the ACA.
This despite the fact that Nikki Haley and Tom Davis and related ilk tried to get her to hate it and then tried to make it difficult for her to access its benefits. Had she let them stop her, she would still be bleeding, still be sick, still be getting weaker, still need that surgery, and still face a very uncertain future.