PA Doctors warn that patients’ medical debt could increase if Trump wins in November

There are 5 million Pennsylvanians with preexisting conditions and they risk losing their healthcare coverage and could face higher medical bills if Donald Trump wins and repeals the Affordable Care Act. 

Ahead of Donald Trump’s rally at Indiana University of Pennsylvania on Monday, doctors and medical professionals called Trump out for wanting to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and replace it with a “concept of a plan.”

“We’re here to call on former President Trump to share what his concepts of a plan are for the Affordable Care Act,” Dr. Max Cooper, an emergency room physician from Southwestern Pennsylvania, said during a press call with reporters. 

“We need to know what Donald Trump’s actual healthcare plans are. Our patients and Pennsylvania voters deserve to know what Donald Trump’s actual healthcare plans are.”

Trump tried repealing the ACA during his first term in office, but fell one vote shy after former US Sen. John McCain voted against overturning the ACA. Trump called the ACA a “catastrophe,”  in Iowa earlier this year, and when pressed by Kamala Harris during the presidential debate about what his plans are to replace the ACA, Trump said he had “concepts of a plan.” 

Two weeks later, he has yet to explain what that plan is, but if it involves repealing the ACA or changing it in a way that could threaten its protections for preexisting conditions — as Trump’s running mate JD Vance has suggested — millions of Pennsylvanians with preexisting conditions face the risk of ballooning medical bills and could be pushed into debt. 

The Keystone previously reported that over 5 million Pennsylvania residents have preexisting conditions, which allowed insurance companies to deny coverage to them prior to the ACA becoming law 14 years ago.  

“As an emergency physician, I see all the time patients who can’t afford their medications, who can’t afford to follow up with their primary care doctors, and all of this is really because all of healthcare is unaffordable, be it the pharmaceutical end, the kind of clinical end, and what have you,” Cooper explained. 

In other words: people often went without the medication or care they needed because they couldn’t afford it or feared going into debt. 

Prior to the passage of the ACA, insurance companies were even allowed to deny healthcare coverage for those who were pregnant, which used to be considered a preexisting condition. 

“My experience of practicing prior to the ACA, what was really evident was patients delaying prenatal care, not having routine prenatal care and having complications from preexisting conditions like diabetes or high blood pressure,” said Dr. Maisa Feghali, an obstetrician and gynecologist in Pittsburgh.

As a result, some of her pregnant patients needed emergency surgery and early delivery, and in some cases, their newborn infants even needed neonatal intensive care, Dr. Feghali said.

On top of potentially repealing the ACA, Trump has called for repealing the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which capped insulin prices for Medicare recipients at $35 per month. This has helped over 80,000 Pennsylvania seniors save money on their insulin prescriptions.   

Cooper called the cap on insulin for Medicare recipients a “godsend” for his patients, and warned that it would be a catastrophe if Trump repealed the IRA.

“I’ve had patients become critically ill and go into cardiac arrhythmias because they’re making uninformed decisions about which medication to take on a certain day, trying to stretch it out for an extended period of time,” Cooper said.” “The insulin cap at $35 a month has been a godsend to our patients. I really don’t see that often anymore people who say they can’t afford their insulin and who come in and a diabetic coma or all these other kinds of complications of insulin rationing.”

Cooper also warned about other harms that would come from repealing the IRA, such as the loss of Medicare’s new drug negotiation powers, which over the next several years will reduce the cost of dozens of high-priced and commonly-used drugs for seniors on Medicare.

“To go back to where we were before would be an absolute catastrophe for my patients, and this ability to negotiate drug prices is something I’m really looking forward to for my patients,” he added.