Be selective

To the editor:

The House Republicans don’t like some parts of the Affordable (health) Care Act (ACA), so they’re trying to repeal all of it, all at once. Well and good. Elections have consequences.

However some overwhelmingly popular parts of the ACA are already in effect. Here are just a few of the new rules for insurance companies:

• no pre-existing condition exclusions for children

• must-insure rules for family members up to age 26

• no lifetime caps on benefits

• must spend at least 80 percent or 85 percent of your money on benefits on average or else give you a refund.

The ACA is already addressing some other issues as well, such as:

• There’s a new tax credit for small businesses.

• The “doughnut hole” in Medicare prescription coverage is being phased out.

• The new Elder Justice Act is being phased in to prevent abuse of the elderly, e.g. in nursing homes.

The Republicans want to make this all go away. Instead they should do the hard work to decide exactly which parts of the ACA they do and don’t like, and just repeal the bad parts.

By voting it all down at once, they’re telling us they want to go back to the bad old days. That’s good for insurance companies that invested heavily in their election. It’s bad for the rest of us.