What's lost with Obamacare

Here's what's at risk in the Texas Obamacare ruling

Whether you know it or not, Obamacare has affected nearly every American.

The Affordable Care Act does far more than allow millions of people to get health insurance through exchanges or Medicaid expansion.

It saves senior citizens money on their Medicare coverage and prescription drugs. 

It lets many Americans obtain free birth control, mammograms and cholesterol tests. 

It requires many restaurants to post the calorie counts of their menu items. 

And it allows children to stay on their parents' health insurance plans until they turn 26.

Even the Trump administration is using the landmark health reform law to try to lower prescription drug prices.

And most importantly for many folks, Obamacare prevents insurers from turning away or charging more to those with pre-existing conditions. 

This provision proved so popular that even Republican candidates found themselves promising to defend it in the recent midterm election in an unsuccessful bid to retain their majority in the House. 

Some 52 million people, or 27% of non-elderly adults, have a pre-existing condition that would have prevented them from getting coverage prior to Obamacare, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.

. . . .

Obamacare has meant lower premiums, deductibles and cost-sharing for the roughly 60 million senior citizens and disabled Americans enrolled in the program.

The health reform law made many changes to Medicare. 

It slowed the growth of payment rates to hospitals and other providers, reduced payments to Medicare Advantage plans and improved benefits for enrollees. 

The Obama administration estimated that the typical Medicare beneficiary pays about $700 less in premiums and cost sharing thanks to the Affordable Care Act.

Under Obamacare, Medicare enrollees also receive free preventative benefits, such as screenings for breast and colorectal cancer, heart disease and diabetes.

And Obamacare helped close the gap in Medicare's drug coverage and was on track to completely eliminate it by 2020. 

Senior citizens have to pay more for drugs while they are in the donut hole, which lies between the initial coverage and catastrophic coverage phases. 

(The Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018 accelerated the closing of the coverage gap to 2019.)

And more.