The Daily Item
April 3, 2024
It would not be an exaggeration to say the Affordable Care Act saved my brother’s life.
Recently, he was diagnosed with necrotizing fasciitis. No, it’s nothing like plantar fasciitis. It is a flesh-eating bacteria that kills one in three people. And yes, it’s as bad as it sounds. It literally eats your flesh from outside in, and if you don’t get medical treatment immediately, you lose the infected part of your body or you lose your life.
As an itinerant teacher, my brother’s contract-teaching assignments don’t provide benefits. His only lifeline to affordable health care is through the ACA.
Without the ACA, my brother could not have accessed the medical treatments needed to save his life: an ambulance ride to the ER; a one-month stay in the hospital, where the bacteria was treated, and the area it had “eaten” covered over with skin grafted from his leg; and months of follow-up care to make sure the wound healed correctly. It didn’t, which required another hospital stay.
My brother doesn’t live in Pennsylvania. But you and I do. And without access to affordable health insurance, our stories could be tragedies. In fact, more than 371,000 Pennsylvanians have signed up for health insurance through the ACA marketplace, and they’re saving money on health care premiums, too.
That’s why I’m voting for Biden, the presidential candidate who seeks to preserve the ACA. Not the presidential candidate seeking to destroy it.
And I urge you to do the same.
Erica L. Shames
Lewisburg
Founder/Publisher Emeritus | Susquehanna Life Magazine, Lewisburg, PA