Medicaid Cuts Hurt All of Putnam County by Josh Florence

Although at the last county commissioner meeting there was some attention brought  to the need for behavioral and mental healthcare ,in our country,  there was a lack of attention brought to the repercussions of the soon-to-expire Affordable Care Act (ACA) tax credits.   At a recent City of Palatka commissioner meeting this was not only brought up, a resolution in support of extending the tax credits was garnered. The facts that convinced the City counsel to get on board?

 Approximately 8,000 residents in Putnam County currently benefit from the ACA  tax credits. What this means for the average individual on a marketplace plan is   someone who  used to pay $387 will now have to pay $2,914. This jump is due to tax credit or subsidy,( government assistance to cover the cost difference) will no longer  be in effect which  leaves consumers with the full cost. The increased monthly healthcare insurance costswill be unaffordable to individuals in our county, thus increasing the number of uninsured people. 

This is important to the people of Putnam County because 21,724 (29.8%) of the county’s residents, as of 2019, were enrolled in Medicaid.  Also, at our local hospital level the payment for admissions of individuals were: 52.6% Medicare and 22.5% Medicaid   –75.1% of all admissions in 2018 to 2019 being paid by the ACA. Without those dollars, there is little hope the one hospital in our county can stay open. A closure would affect us all, not just those receiving Medicare and Medicaid. How will emergency patients survive being carted all the way to Gainesville, or St. Augustine, or Jacksonville?

   It is more important than ever for our sitting county commissioners to  tell Representative Randy Fine and Sen. Rick Scott, (former CEO of Columbia Hospital Corporation before being sold to HCA) that these tax credits are important to the people of  our county. If Americans lose these credits, we will see the burden shifted to those who are already struggling to afford health insurance and rural hospitals will suffer the brunt of the funding loss, especially in Florida where we declined to expand Medicaid coverage. The biggest question is why cut the program that helps most Americans only to put the cost burden on the backs of the few?