Dozens of Scranton area residents and health care workers gathered outside of the Scranton Municipal Building on Sunday to hold a candlelight vigil for the up to 250,000 Pennsylvanians who could lose their health care once Affordable Care Act (ACA) tax credits expire at the end of this year.
The vigil was supposed to coincide with a fundraiser for US Rep. Rob Bresnahan (R-Luzerne) and featured House Speaker Mike Johnson, but was ultimately canceled—most likely due to the ongoing federal government shutdown.
Nonetheless, the vigil went on as planned, with Bresnahan’s constituents sharing how the loss of those tax credits and $1 trillion in cuts to Medicaid that Bresnahan supported would hurt them.
Susan Wiggins, a longtime medical laboratory technologist at Regional Hospital of Scranton, said those changes put her hospital at risk of closing.
“The slashing of Medicaid and Pennie will also cause service cuts, layoffs, closures throughout home care programs, clinics, nursing homes, and vulnerable hospitals like mine. At Regional, we’re already barely hanging on by a thread. These cuts will lead to more financial losses, making it even harder for us to provide care for our over 381,000 patient visits every year,” Wiggins said.
Heidi Sheldon, a psychotherapist living in Lackawanna County, dreads what the loss of ACA tax credits will mean for her family, which gets coverage via Pennie, Pennsylvania’s healthcare marketplace.
“ It’s already very expensive. I cover myself and my young adult son. My daughter also works a job with no benefits and she relies on the Affordable Care Act and uses Pennie for her benefits,” Sheldon said. “We may be at risk of not having healthcare next year, and it’s very scary to consider that.”
