As two self-employed artists in Maine, my wife and I know what it’s like to not have health insurance.
First, my wife needed a gallbladder extraction. Because we couldn’t afford to pay $600 a month for a catastrophic plan, we were uninsured, so the whole operation set us back $15,000. We made it over that hurdle, but barely.
When Maine’s Dirigo Health plan became available, we were among the first wave of people to sign up. The premiums were a hardship for us, but we were grateful nonetheless to have something. The transition from Dirigo to the Affordable Care Act went smoothly for us, and our premiums and co-pays were finally within our means.
The financial scope of my neck cancer in 2015 was considerably larger than my wife’s gallbladder extraction. Thankfully, the ACA was with us the whole way.
We are just two out of the millions in this country who have benefited from the Affordable Care Act. Repealing it is unnecessary and cruel. This law was designed to be a work in progress, and we strongly urge Sen. Susan Collins to do just that: work to make the existing program function better. Repealing it will only leave millions of us uninsured again.
Gordon Carlisle and Susan Poulin
Eliot
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