Affordable Care Act is needed first step

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) was a focal point in this election cycle. Incessant television ads and talk shows predicted doom and gloom for medical care. The underlying theme was any candidate who supported the ACA must be, at the least, misguided.

The incessant diatribe is reminiscent of the reaction when Medicare went into effect in 1965. Many people worried Medicare would be the ruination of medicine. In the Iowa community where I was then practicing, several doctors refused to see Medicare patients, claiming the program was wrong and certain to fail. Medicare is a success, but fear-based propaganda against the ACA is, as Yogi Berra would say, déjà vu all over again.

When compared to other highly industrialized nations, the U.S. spends almost twice the percentage of its gross domestic product (GDP) on health care.

Yet, we have a shorter life expectancy, increased infant mortality rate, more obesity with its complications, and on and on, compared to many 'peer” countries.

The U.S. clearly suffers from a serious inequity in regard to health care. For 50 years every effort to address this problem has been politicized to the point of paralysis.

The ACA is a first step in the right direction, but millions of Americans, including approximately 300,000 Iowans, still do not have adequate health care insurance. Even after years of debate, those opposing the ACA have yet to offer a viable alternative to address the problems of the uninsured.

Politicians, especially those with a medical background, must embrace the opportunity to improve and expand the ACA if there is ever to be a truly 'Healthy Iowa” and 'Healthy America.”

An important measure of a truly great country is the effort it expends to care for the less fortunate. We do this as a country because it is the right thing to do and we are all better for the effort.

' Daryl Granner is professor emeritus at the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine and at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. Comments: daryl-granner@uiowa.edu