Trump's administration has been negatively impacting veterans for years.

His attempts to destroy the ACA is just one example of his policies hurting veterans.

This is a portion of my congressional testimony on the ACA's impact on veterans.

Thread- https://demcastusa.com/2019/10/29/the-impact-of-the-aca-on-veterans/

Generally, a veteran can access health care coverage through the Veterans Health Administration, Medicare, Medicaid, TRICARE, and/or private insurance. Myself, like many veterans enrolled in VA health care (80.8%), have some other type of public or private insurance.

We piecemeal our coverage through a mix of private and public options. As a population, the challenge we face is when we look at two specific groups of veterans, those without a secondary insurance outside of the VA health system and those with no health care coverage at all.

In 2013, prior to the ACA, almost one in ten (9.1%) nonelderly veterans were uninsured completely. Within two years the percentage was down to 5.8%. The ACA worked. That is 429,000 veterans utilizing the ACA over that time period cutting the number of uninsured veterans by 40%.

In 2015 alone, the ACA saved the VA health system 125,000 more office visits, 1,500 more inpatient surgeries, and 375,000 more prescriptions.

For enrollees in VA health, there is an opportunity to expand on the successes of the ACA. In 2018, 19.2 percent of VA health enrollees reported no public or private insurance. These numbers are real people with real families that can benefit from the ACA.

Today the number of veterans with private insurance within the VA health system is at 27.6%. Without pre-existing condition protections we can expect a decrease in this number which will further put pressure on the VA.

Medicaid is relieving the stress that is being placed on the Department of Veteran Affairs. Approximately 340,000 veterans receive coverage through the ACA's Medicaid expansion in the United States. This brings the total number of veterans covered by Medicaid to 1.75 million.

In 2015, uninsured rates for veterans was at 4.8% in Medicaid expansion states and 7.1% in non-expansion states. Before ACA implementation, 21.6% of veterans with family incomes up to 138% of FPL did not have coverage, but by 2015, this had dropped to 12.2%.

Health care is important to me because it saved my life. I suffer from PTSD and without the services that I received through the VA and private health care system, I may not have been here to share this. I could be one of the 20 veteran suicides that occur on average a day.

“Thank you for your service,” is a catch phrase that we hear often. You, the general public, have the opportunity to not only thank us, you have the opportunity to save us.

Vote this election.