The end of the road has finally come. There is nowhere to run or hide anymore; your inevitable fate of death has arrived sooner than expected and is coming at full speed. You have been diagnosed with stage two-pancreatic cancer. Thoughts run through your head at light speed, denying, worrying, and questioning how this could have happened. With optimism, your doctor informs you that there is still a chance for remission if you start treatment as soon as possible. However, you have no health insurance or money to even afford the expenses that would result from treatment. You can barely afford to support your family, how would you be able to afford health insurance? These are the type of stories that need to change. America has finally made a change that could allow everyone to afford health insurance. In Sally Kohn’s article on Fox News titled, “Five Reasons Americans already love ObamaCare- plus one reason why they’re gonna love it even more, soon,” she supports the Affordable Care Act and the benefits that it provides to society. Aspiring to be a future physician, I believe that there are many benefits to this new policy, however Kohn does not discuss the few drawbacks that do exist. ObamaCare is beneficial in the fact that it provides subsidies to help individuals afford coverage, bans insurance companies from denying coverage for pre-existing conditions, and puts the individual mandate in action. Kohn does suppress evidence from her readers and fails to mention the people that suffer from the new policies of this act.
The lower class of America receives the most benefits from this new Affordable Care Act. One thing that ObamaCare does is that it provides subsidies for those who cannot afford health insurance. This means that based on one’s salary, the government will pay a portion of one’s health insurance so it is affordable. Kohn claims “ Many of the 45 million Americans who lack health insurance simply do not have enough money to afford coverage.” Therefore, I believe supporting this part of ObamaCare is justified. Lowering the cost will be an effective measure to attract more people to attain health insurance since ObamaCare’s main goal for America is universal healthcare. Stories, like the one told earlier, can now be avoided and health insurance would help pay for the treatment required for pancreatic cancer. Overall, providing subsidies is a positive aspect of ObamaCare and will help with the over arching goal of universal health care.
Another aspect that Kohn discusses is that insurance companies can no longer reject someone based on pre-existing conditions. Along with this, insurance companies are no longer allowed to drop someone that is costing them money. Furthermore, as Kohn mentions in the article, four-month-old babies, such as Alex Lange, can no longer be rejected coverage for being chubby as a child. Insurance companies believe that Alex has a high probability of being unhealthy in the future, ultimately costing them money; therefore, they denied him coverage.  Kohn utilizes the appeal of pathos by using Alex to make her readers feel sorry for him and to convince her reader to support this aspect of the Affordable Care Act. Personally, I agree with her and believe that this was a major problem that needed to be fixed. Pre-existing conditions is another major reason that some Americans do not have health insurance. This is important because this problem is not caused by the people, but caused by the insurance companies that do not want to take the risk of accepting someone who will cost them money in the future. Therefore, attacking this problem was essential in order to attain universal healthcare.
At this point, you may be thinking, seems like ObamaCare is helping the people and costing the insurance companies large amounts of money. Where is this money being regenerated? That is right. From the wealthy taxpayer’s money and from the new individual mandate that has been instated. This is the evidence that Kohn suppresses from her readers, and for a good purpose. The wealthy people who can afford health insurance suffer. Therefore, in order to get all of her readers to support ObamaCare, she does not mention that tax money is used for the people who cannot afford health insurance. Kohn also uses a booby trap by not mentioning the new individual mandate, which requires everyone to get health insurance. If they do not, they will be fined a certain amount of money, and this amount increases every year. Therefore, in order to make up for the unhealthy people the insurance companies signed on, they will now have the pool of healthy people that thought they did not need health insurance before the Affordable Care Act. Kohn shows a clear use of booby traps in her article that makes readers only think of the benefits of ObamaCare.
Now, ultimately questions will arise of whether or not the government should have control over health insurance. Regarding ObamaCare, I believe that the benefits outweigh the drawbacks so it is a justified act. According to Forbes, the UK is number one in healthcare services worldwide. They, provide free health insurance for all permanent residents. I believe that the U.S is making a stride towards this and ObamaCare will ultimately help America reach their goal of universal healthcare. Although at the cost of the wealthy, I believe that providing subsidies, not allowing insurance companies to reject people based on pre-existing conditions, and putting the individual mandate in action are all ways to increase the amount of people with health insurance. Kohn’s article did a great job in pointing out the positives of ObamaCare and I believe this is the first step to get America to reach the top and become the worldwide leader in healthcare services.