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After my double mastectomy two years ago, I had to read two terrifying things: my pathology report and my hospital bill. The pathology report made me sink to the floor with despair; it noted multiple large tumors that had invaded my skin, and 15 underarm lymph nodes bursting with rapidly dividing cancer cells. I would require months of aggressive treatment. The bill for my hospital stay and surgery was $173,000. But there was some good news: My insurance plan paid for all of it. For this, I thanked the Affordable Care Act, because it mandated that hospitalization — and everything else I needed, including lab tests, medication and physical therapy — be covered as part of a set of essential benefits. (Sascha Cohen, 10/1)

Republicans do not care whether anyone has health insurance—which is to say they effectively do not care whether lower-income Americans die or fall into crippling debt. If they did, they would have used their time in power to move the country toward universal healthcare, not away from it. When they try to tell you they care about this stuff, they are lying, every time. (Harry Cheadle, 9/26)

The Trump administration wants to change how the government defines who is or is likely to become a “public charge.” The Department of Homeland Security released a draft regulation on Sept. 22, in which it proposed that any immigrant who is likely to use or who has already used Medicaid, public housing or a rent voucher, cash assistance or food stamps could be barred from the country or kept from getting permanent resident status. ...This redefinition of self-sufficiency ignores the way that most people use these programs. Even people with jobs often cycle on and off assistance as work comes and goes, or to plug the gaps when it just doesn’t pay enough. These programs allow people to remain healthy and solvent — supporting their independence. This rule therefore hurts everyone, not just immigrants, by stigmatizing the safety net funded by all of us to help people survive when they fall on hard times. (Bryce Covert, 10/1)

The Trump administration recently announced a draft regulation that would penalize legal immigrants applying for green cards if they use public benefits — what’s referred to as being a “public charge.” ...The result is that our foreign-born patients would have to make life-and-death decisions between seeking care, food or shelter, and the risk of deportation. (Sarah Kimball, Nicolette Oleng and Elisabeth Poorman, 9/28)

Almost 10 years have passed since Congress required that insurers offering mental-health services for illnesses of the brain, such as depression or addiction, do so no more restrictively than illnesses of the body, such as diabetes or cancer. And yet most insurers today still do not comply with the law. Mental-health parity is more important now than ever before, considering the rising numbers of overdoses and suicides nationwide. But state and federal investigations have shown that mental-health and addiction treatment are frequently far more onerous to manage. (Rosalynn Carter and Patrick J. Kennedy, 9/28)

Medicaid expansion has made an overwhelmingly positive impact on rural Kentucky. Our state was among the top three leaders in lowering our uninsured rate for low-income adults in rural areas and small towns. (Emily Beauregard, 9/28)