Numbers tell value of health care bill

I am writing to express my opposition to attempts to repeal the Affordable Care Act. There are telling statistics about health care reform:

타 32 million — the number of Americans who now will have access to health insurance thanks.

타 5.6 million — the number of Americans with pre-existing conditions who could be denied coverage without the law.

타 44 million — the number of senior citizens who will benefit from the closing of the doughnut hole in Medicare.

타 24.6 million — the number of young Americans who can stay on their parents’ health plan until they are 26 when they would have been dropped earlier without the law.

The numbers surrounding a repeal are just as telling. The cost of repeal would be $230 billion this decade and $1 trillion in the next. Also, it would prevent anywhere from 250,000 to 400,000 jobs from being created each year.

These statistics are important and prove the benefits of the Affordable Care Act and the costs of repeal. But more importantly, this is about people and their health. In a country as great as America, there should never be a time when we have to say to someone that there is something out there that could cure your loved one, but you just can’t afford it.

That is unacceptable to me and goes against the very character of our country. We deserve better, and that is why we cannot afford to repeal health care reform.

Jack DiMatteo

Deerfield