Sen. Kelda Roys, D-Madison, spoke about health care stakes in Wisconsin and the necessity of the Affordable Care Act at a Madison press conference held on behalf of the Harris-Walz campaign Monday.
“The stakes for Wisconsinites in particular could not be greater, especially when it comes to our health care. We were one vote away in the United States Senate from having the Affordable Care Act gone, leaving millions of people without coverage,” Roys said.
The Affordable Care Act, or “Obamacare,” is the comprehensive health care law signed by former President Barack Obama in 2010. The Affordable Care Act created marketplaces that reduced premiums and allowed for states to expand Medicaid to households with incomes between 100% and 400% of the federal poverty level.
Forty states and the District of Columbia have expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. Wisconsin has not.
The Affordable Care Act has insured 806,000 Wisconsinites since its enactment, according to a report from the U.S. Treasury Department. A record number of people signed up for Affordable Care Act marketplace coverage this year, including 266,000 Wisconsinites.
College Democrats of UW-Madison Communications Director and University of Wisconsin-Madison junior Whitman Bottari joined Roys and said she is “terrified” of what a second presidency under former President Donald Trump could mean for accessible health care.
“That’s why I’m here today in Madison, sounding the alarm for students like myself who are deciding who to vote for this November,” Bottari said.
In 2017, Trump led an effort to repeal the individual and employer mandates of the Affordable Care Act. The proposal passed the U.S. House but failed in the U.S. Senate after late Sen. John McCain, a Republican from Arizona, cast the decisive vote to stop the proposal from meeting Trump’s desk.
“Before the ACA, I remember taking care of Judy, who had a chronic blood disorder. At every visit, we had to negotiate which of the necessary parts of her care she could afford,” said Dr. Sophie Kramer, a primary care physician and clinical assistant professor at UW-Madison’s School of Medicine and Public Health. “This is life or death for the patients I treat.”
The conference shifted the spotlight to efforts led by the Republican-controlled state Legislature to reverse the landmark health care legislation.
“Let’s be clear that Trump is not alone, right? The Wisconsin GOP delegation in Congress are handmaidens to this plan,” Roys said. “State Sen. Duey Stroebel called the Affordable Care Act ‘a disaster,’ and he voted to halt its implementation. Joan Ballweg, another extremist senator, tried to get our attorney general to sue to repeal the Affordable Care Act.”
The Harris-Walz campaign held a similar Affordable Care Act press conference in Green Bay on Monday ahead of Vice President Kamala Harris’ planned trip to Wisconsin on Friday as the campaign seeks to gain ground in the crucial battleground state ahead of the Nov. 5 election.
Harris will visit Madison on Friday to tout her New Way Forward plan to lower health care costs, protect rural hospitals and strengthen the Affordable Care Act. The trip will be Harris’ fourth visit to Wisconsin and her first to Madison since she launched her presidential campaign in July.
