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“Thanks to the ACA, the
number of people in our country without health care coverage
fell to a record low in the last year of President Obama’s
presidency,” said TUSA President Rev. James Willis as he led
off the press conference. “The Affordable Care Act didn’t
just expand insurance coverage to give more people access to
health care, it also established new rules for insurance
companies that made health care more affordable, that
increased quality and that protected patients from debt and
bankruptcy because of medical bills.”
Willis was joined by Rev.
Marcia Dinkins; Art Walker, co-president of TUSA; Rev. John
Walthall of Mt. Ararat MBC and Rev. William Davis of Braden
United Methodist.
Dinkins spoke about what
the ACA had done for Americans. “The ACA stopped gender
discrimination in health coverage … before the ACA, 92
percent of insurance policies charged women 1.5 times more
than men for the same policy; the ACA increased the quality
of coverage by requiring that 10 basic essential health
benefits be covered under all policies sold on exchanges …
because of the ACA, insurers can no longer impose lifetime
or annual limits in coverage.”
Walker noted that while
Americans have cause to celebrate, Republican elected
officials around the nation are doing what they can “to
repeal, undermine and weaken the ACA.” However, Walker
added, the American people have fought back against attempts
to derail Obamacare. “Constituents across the country
confronted the GOP for trying to take away heath care and
sent a clear message that the ACA is here to stay.”
Walthal cautioned though
that the battle to preserve the ACA is not over. “Grassroots
activists stopped the worst attacks on the ACA and Medicaid
but that didn’t stop Republicans … from continued efforts to
repeal and dismantle the law.” Walthal observed that the
Trump Administration is attempting to “sabotage the law by
rolling back ACA gains like no-cost birth control, refusing
to make the cost sharing reduction payments to insurers that
lower costs and by expanding short-term junk insurance
policies that don’t meet basic ACA rules.”
Davis added that Congress
can fix the damage caused by Republicans and can pass a
bipartisan measure to stabilize markets and lower premiums
for constituents but Republicans in both houses have blocked
efforts to “clean up their mess.” In the Senate, said Davis,
Republicans have offered a bill that “would leave even more
people without coverage and raise costs.” And in the House,
there are “no provisions to address cost sharing reductions,
premium hikes or additional funding for tax credits that
help working families made it into the bill” that was voted
on that week.
Toledoans United for
Social Action is a faith-based community organization
founded in 1989 to address serious local problems. The group
is comprised of 24 religious congregations from the greater
metropolitan area and is racially, religiously and
economically diverse.
The organization had
drifted rudderless for quite a while until, in recent years,
new leadership breathed life into the group and rebuilt its
membership and activities. In 2014, TUSA held its first
annual conference and the organization’s achievements have
subsequently been evaluated
Currently TUSA members
have prioritized the following issues: re-entry programs for
ex-offenders, lead abatement, domestic violence and the ease
with which children are turned into criminals. More recently
the organization has addressed issues of gun safety, the
federal budget and the harm caused by cutting programs
within the social safety net along with health care
concerns.
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