Obama Care is Preventative Care
It was 2012, I was an intern at The Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland; and the bearer of bad news. Fortunately, for the patient more than me, it wasn't 'The Big C' (Cancer), but it was a diagnosis that was a key to understanding how healthcare, or lack of it, lead to this moment. I was standing in a crowded, overflowing Emergency Department and had to tell this man I just met that he would have to be admitted to the hospital because his kidney's we're failing.
"What? Why? How" he sputtered.
I addressed the weight of each of those questions in length at the time. But in short: "The What" - your kidneys have seen years of abuse and the swelling in your legs, your shortness of breath and weight gain are all because your kidneys don't work as well as they used to. "The Why" - your blood pressure is 200/110, extremely high, and the body can't take that kind of strain - your kidneys, heart, lungs and brain are all being affected. "The How" - well he answered that...
"I knew I should've dealt with this a long time ago. But it wasn't that bad at the time" he said. "I've been on the medications for the past month" he explained.
Too little, too late. The phrase rang true. I thought.
"What changed?" I asked . "Why weren't you on medications before?"
"Obama Care" he answered.
I left that room smh, incredulous. The social and economic situations in Baltimore as well as cities and communities just like it make people choose between medications and food. Providing for their families now and cashing a rain check on their health for later. This man's kidneys had failed, time would tell whether he would need dialysis and how his heart had taken the 'years of abuse'. But, in that moment, one thing was sure. I became a believer in Obama Care.
I started medical school the year President Barack Obama was elected to his first term. The Affordable Care Act - also known as "Obama Care" or the ACA - was passed in 2010. I felt the impact that it had on the people of Baltimore in 2012, and speaking to my friends, doctors in community clinics, emergency departments and hospital wards across the country - they too we're seeing patients, people, just as I described. People who had gone on too long ignoring their health not because they couldn't access the health care system but because they couldn't afford to access it.
There is good and bad with everything - and Obama Care isn't perfect, but Obama Care is Preventative Care. It is the kind of care that virtually all doctors agree we need, the care that really matters - stopping disease and illness before it happens. You can take my word on it, or better yet The Presidents - two leading medical journals The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) and The Journal of The American Medical Association (JAMA) have seen it fit to publish the President's analysis, critique and concerns regarding the Affordable Care Act. What putting it in place has meant for Americans and what it will mean to repeal it. I encourage you to read them both.
- https://www.hhs.gov/healthcare/facts-and-features/key-features-of-aca/
- http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp1616577#t=article
- http://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2533698