In March 2010, President Barack Obama signed into law the most impactful health care reform bill since Medicare and Medicaid in 1965. Today, President Donald Trump and a Republican-controlled Congress are poised to dismantle this law, a move that will endanger the health status of millions of Americans, especially those with Alzheimer’s disease or dementia, medical experts argue.
The Affordable Care Act, known as the ACA or Obamacare, is a legislative engine created to reduce rising healthcare costs while improving health outcomes for all Americans. Medical experts maintain that the ACA provides vital support to those with cognitive impairments. Should the law remain intact, it will continue to benefit patients, caregivers, and families. Despite this, Republican leaders decry the ACA as a failure.
“The ACA has led to multiple initiatives that are improving the quality of care in the hospital, community, and long-term care settings,” Dr. Jason Karlawish, Co-Director of the Penn Memory Center, wrote in a recent Forbes column. “These initiatives are reducing out-of-pocket payments for prescription drugs, tackling the horror of elder abuse and neglect, and training healthcare professionals in geriatric medicine.”
According to Leaders Engaged on Alzheimer’s Disease (LEAD), a growing national coalition of more than 90 organizations dedicated to overcoming Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia, repealing the ACA would have dangerous implications for dementia patients and their families.
The ACA has established:
- Medicare Annual Wellness Visit, with a cognitive assessment to identify decline in brain function
- Protection for pre-existing conditions, which supports adults with early-onset dementia and family caregivers
- Medicare-Medicaid care coordination, which improves care for dually eligible beneficiaries and reduces waste
- New requirements for skilled nursing facilities, including increased transparency and quality-of-care goals
- Support for young adult caregivers, through extended health insurance for adults under age 26
The Medicare Annual Wellness visit, which serves in part as a “brain check-up,” is a key intervention tool in detecting and preventing Alzheimer’s disease, Karlawish argued.
Furthermore, “the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation has been a driver of innovations such as the comprehensive primary care program,” Karlawish wrote. “This program supports practice groups to coordinate the care of older adults with diseases that place them at risk of harmful readmissions to hospital, unnecessary medications and declines in their health.” Patients with Alzheimer’s are among those designated as “at risk,” earning eligibility for comprehensive primary care.
Karlawish recently sent a copy of his Forbes column along with a letter to Pennsylvania Senators Bob Casey and Pat Toomey.
“The ACA has made great advances in improving the delivery of complex and chronic care that Medicare pays for,” Karlawish claimed. “If you allow these advances to be repealed, older Pennsylvanians and their caregivers will suffer. I’m eager to work with you to assure that the older Pennsylvanians and their caregivers do not suffer from the partisan bloodletting to ‘repeal Obamacare.’”