The current US system, better referred to as a health insurance system rather than a health care system, does not produce quality outcomes nor does it serve all people equally. According to West Health- Gallup 2021 Healthcare in America Report, nearly one-third of Americans reported not seeking treatment for a health problem in the prior three months due to cost.
Universal health care is a term that is used for various models of health care systems that provide care for every resident of a given country. Universal healthcare will help fix many of the problems with the current system in the United States. While ideally, a universal healthcare system such as Bernie Sanders’s Medicare for All would be implemented in the United States, there is still hope. The United States obviously hasn’t implemented a universal healthcare system yet, but strides have been made. The main one being the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was signed into law by President Obama in March 2010. It is commonly known as the Affordable Care Act or Obamacare. Per the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the Affordable Care Act has three primary objectives:
- To broaden access to affordable private health insurance
- To expand the Medicaid public health insurance program to cover all adults under 138% of the federal poverty threshold
- To lower the overall cost of healthcare delivery
However, over a decade later, Obamacare’s record on these objectives is mixed. The number of Americans with health insurance coverage did increase in the years of its passage. However, it has slipped after the elimination of the individual mandate. In addition, during Trump’s presidency, he continually advocated for “repealing and replacing” Obamacare which halted many advances.
Most states have expanded Medicaid, but South Carolina is one of only 12 states that have not, to the detriment of its lower-income residents. South Carolina’s governor and legislature have strongly rejected Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). As a result, there are about 105,000 people in the state who are in the “coverage gap.” People fall into the coverage gap when they earn too much to qualify for Medicaid, but not enough to receive subsidized coverage in the marketplace. In many cases, they are forced to rely on emergency rooms and community health clinics, but future funding for those clinics is in jeopardy too.
In my DIAC I focused on the economic and ethical backing behind universal healthcare and why the US should implement it. I knew that for my remix project I wanted to do something that urged the implementation of universal healthcare. However, when doing research on legislation for the remix project, I discovered that there is currently no proposals/legislation that deals with a nation-wide universal healthcare policy. As a result, I decided to focus on the expansion of Medicaid which in a sense is a transitional step that can hopefully lead to universal healthcare.
Since the expansion of Medicaid is something that must be voted on, I thought that the most appropriate genre was to write a to one of the South Carolina State Legislators, as they would be the ones voting on it. The expansion of Medicaid has been in the SC senate committee since January 12 of 2021(as shown below), so I choose to compose a letter to Daniel Verdin, Republican Chairman of the Committee of Medical Affairs.
Through research around the topic, I discovered that it is recommended to email elected officials as it is much faster than normal mail making it possible for the official to respond much more quickly and it is less likely to get lost on the receiver’s desk. So, I decided to write a letter that can be attached in an email to Chairman Verdin, instead of sending an actual letter to mail.
Through the process of composing my email I did research on how to effectively write to an elected official. Site after site emphasized that in your writing you must clear about your position, keep it brief and concise, and use unaggressive language. In addition, it suggested that, if possible, to humanize your message by sharing personal experiences/stories, all of which I implemented.
Besides researching the proper formatting of the letter, I did a lot of research on the history of Obamacare and Medicaid in order to make sure that I had adequate knowledge on the subject to write about it. I also had to do research on which people exactly are in charge of making the decisions. Through my research I discovered that the Medical Affairs committee of the South Carolina Senate would be the best place to start, and then I choose the Chairman to address my letter to.
As with any genre, there were definitely constraints to my email. Like I mentioned previously, given the fact that it was an email, I had to keep my writing concise. In addition, I would have liked to have written to one of the representatives from Charleston or York County (my hometown), however, unfortunately none of the South Carolina senators from either region were on the Medical Affairs Committe. While I tried to emphasize that healthcare was not a party issue and that other red states have implemented Medicaid expansion successfully, a constraint is that Chairman Verdin is a republican, so he might be less likely to advocate for the expansion of Medicaid due to the stance the Republican Party has on more public forms of healthcare. In addition, since I am not one of Verdin’s constituents, a possible constraint is that he might not spend as much time reading the email since I am not one of his constituents would not be voting for his reelection in 2024.
Ultimately, I really enjoyed writing the email and I think that I did a good job demonstrating that I took the time to do my research on the subject. While I feel like my letter was very well done, there could always be room for improvement. If I were to do the project again, I might choose to make two generic letter (one for conservative senators and one for liberal senators) that could be sent to any of the senators on the Medical Affairs committee.
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