We need to talk about health care.
Specifically, we need to talk about politics and health care, and how it affects us writers.
Health care has been in the news a lot under the new administration. First there was the One Big Beautiful Bill, which made significant cuts to health care. Then there was the fight in Congress over extending the expanded Affordable Care Act subsidies, which actually shut down the government for over a month until six cowardly senators caved under pressure and traded our health care for a promise.
Now, we’re in an illegal war in the Middle East that Congress won’t fund, so the administration is looking for pots of money to steal from — and of course their sights fell on health care, because what else would they cut? They’re using the standard excuse, of course, claiming they’re going after “waste and fraud and abuse.”
Even if you try to avoid following politics on a normal basis, as a writer you should care about health care, particularly if writing is your main job. For those who don’t remember what it was like to buy individual health insurance before the ACA, health insurance companies could refuse to cover you at all if you had a preexisting condition, or they could refuse to cover anything relating to the preexisting condition (the primary reason you needed health care, usually) for a period of time such as a year.
The ACA was revolutionary for writers and, really, all entrepreneurs. Suddenly we could get not only health insurance — regardless of preexisting conditions — but also, policies now offered standardized coverage, so you knew what you were getting for that money.
So when the administration talks about cutting health care, you know that is going to affect people like you and me — writers, entrepreneurs, small business owners, those who don’t have health insurance offered through a traditional job. Even if it doesn’t affect you right at this moment — maybe you have health insurance through your spouse’s job, or maybe you have another part-time or full-time job that provides coverage — but it’s important to remember that you can’t count on that always being the case. I’ve been through a divorce, my husband being laid off, and other mishaps that have resulted in us losing health insurance under our group plans.
In fact, you may have been affected by the cuts to health care already. In the past year cuts have been made not just to Medicaid, but also to funding for the ACA tax credits. The expanded tax credits were not renewed, and the projected number of people dropping their coverage as a result led to an additional increase in premiums.
And now they want to make even more cuts to federal spending on health care? For a war that the president promised on the campaign trail that he wouldn’t start, that his voters didn’t want, and that the American people overwhelmingly oppose?
Even if you don’t follow politics on a regular basis, this is a moment — and an issue — that writers and entrepreneurs everywhere need to speak up about. Make sure your elected officials know that health care is more than just political for you — it’s personal.