Lawler blames the ACA, but it’s insurers who are profiting while patients suffer

Dear Editor,

Congressman Mike Lawler continues to use Project 2025 talking points to cut services from the poor and middle class of America.

On the Morning Joe show last month, Lawler not only continued to deny the facts about cuts to Medicaid, but added a new twist – he blamed poor health care on the Affordable Care Act.

Lawler suggests that the ACA was the cause of private insurance companies being allowed to own private medical practices. He cited our local issue of United Healthcare owning Optum, where stories of competing interests and denial of services are rampant. As is usually the case with Lawler, his statements overlook some hard truths that the creators of Project 2025 refuse to see.

The ACA was filled with compromises within a government system that has never seemed ready for universal healthcare – a system in which all people, regardless of income, are valued enough to receive appropriate treatment. Instead, a slew of compromises resulted in people receiving better healthcare but at ever-increasing prices controlled by a handful of insurance companies. And for those locked out of this system, the Big Beautiful Bill will now deny them Medicaid services as well.

The top health insurance companies in our country had profits that humped 230 percent in the last 10 years. The lion’s share goes to United Health Group, which reportedly denies a high percentage of claims from policy holders. Universal healthcare, a privilege given to every advanced country but our own, would solve this problem.

But does Lawler address the basic sickness in the insurance industry? No, he does not. Instead, he will throw out Obama’s name and the ACA as some defense of the tragic cuts to our social services. He will gladly cap services for the disabled while denying this is happening.

Project 2025, along with its devotees like Mike Lawler, rejects expertise, institutions, education and progress. Sadly, what they reject most is the ethos of American society that we speak the truth and work towards better tomorrows for us all.

-Dorothy Venditto, Mount Kisco