Know anyone with high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, cancer, heart problems or a litany of other ailments or injuries? I do.
Terry retired early due to increasing hip pain. A year later, he needed a hip replacement. At 22, Clayton was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease. Without an expensive biologic medicine, he’d be disabled in five years. In Dec. 2013, Gary got cancer. He needed lifesaving surgery but was denied health coverage due to a pre-existing condition.
All these men had preexisting conditions. But thanks to the PPACA, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), they were able to get health insurance and receive the medical treatments they needed.
As insurance commissioner, Rosendale supports policies that’ll increase prescription costs, kick 94,000 families off healthcare, and allow insurance companies to discriminate against 152,000 Montanans with pre-existing conditions. He opposed CHIP, which provides health care for 24,000 Montana kids and 17 health clinics serving 100,000 Montanans.
Rosendale says healthcare costs are too high. Nobody disputes that. Yet he allowed a 23 percent rate hike. Now he says the way to save money is to remove the life-saving patient protections of the PPACA? Such hypocrisy!
Terry is back at work. Clayton got his MSW and works in mental health. Gary is alive and sings in his church choir. They’re my husband, my son, my brother. My family’s story could easily be yours.
Putting money over people might work in Maryland, Matt, but not in Montana.
Debbie Epperson
Kalispell