A hasty Obamacare repeal would be ‘devastating’ for the poor

By following through on their promise to repeal “Obamacare” immediately, Republican lawmakers and the new Trump administration are engaging in reckless political theater. The Affordable Care Act is not without its flaws, and the U.S. bishops were right to resist threats to religious liberty posed by the law. But Obamacare has expanded health care to millions of people, and the church should be equally vocal in its defense of the principle of universal health care. On Jan. 18, Bishop Frank J. Dewane sent a letter calling on members of Congress to consider the millions of people who will be hurt if key provisions of the law are dismantled without a simultaneous replacement. Reform efforts must focus not only on controlling costs and protecting religious freedom but extending coverage to the poor, for whom, Bishop Dewane writes, “the introduction of great uncertainty at this time would prove particularly devastating.”

This article appears in February 6 2017.