There has been a lot of misunderstanding about what the Affordable Care Act accomplishes for ordinary people like me. Summarized below are a few of the most compelling provisions of the Affordable Care Act, provisions that will disappear upon repeal, provisions that improve the lives of you and others you care about:

The ACA:

1. For Medicare enrollees: provides key preventive services at no cost; enrollees also receive a 50 percent discount on brand-name drugs in the Medicare “doughnut hole.”
2. Prevents insurance companies from rescinding coverage.
3. Eliminates lifetime limits on insurance coverage.
4. Prevents insurance companies from denying coverage to children with pre-existing medical conditions; provides access to all uninsured Americans with pre-existing conditions.
5. Sets up a Community Care Transition Program that helps high-risk seniors on Medicare to avoid unnecessary hospital readmissions.
6. Provides health-insurance tax credits to small businesses wishing to provide health care to their employees.
7. Allows young adults to stay on their parents’ insurance plan until they turn 26.
8. Provides increased payment to rural health-care providers to help keep medical care in our rural communities.

To learn more, go here.

I hope people will contact their local and national representatives and senators who think it is so important to make a political statement by repealing the Affordable Care Act: Ask them specifically which of the above provisions they are planning to take away from all of us.

Make it better. Don’t take it away.