Postscript: NO, actually, THEY are TAKING YOUR HEALTHCARE COVERAGE AWAY.

This is a P.S. to NO, actually, THEY are TAKING YOUR HEALTHCARE COVERAGE AWAY: III, posted here on January 21, 2020.

Another effect of taking the Affordable Care Act away is taking away one of the ACA's protections of Medicare. Since it was enacted in 2010, the Affordable Care Act has whittled away at the so-called "doughnut hole" for Medicare Part D premiums.

    Medicare Part D has been notorious for a "coverage gap." After reaching a certain choke point or threshold, Medicare Part D required Medicare recipients to pay 100% of their drug costs from that point until they reached a second threshold where "low deductible, catastrophic coverage" would kick in. In other words, people on Medicare would pay low premiums for drug expenses, up to a point.

    When that point was reached Medicare recipients became responsible for every penny of drug costs and you can only imagine how expensive that was for many people. The experience gave rise to many stories of cutting pills into smaller pieces, stretching supplies by taking your pills every other day or every third day, and similar workarounds. Then once the patients paid enough money to reach a second threshold, they qualified for catastrophic coverage which it turns out was well-named for more than one reason.

    The Affordable Care Act changed all that by making the costs of prescription drugs even under Medicare Part D, well, affordable. If the ACA is taken away, affordability will go away too.

    "(Of course, if the Supreme Court ends up striking down the Affordable Care Act, the hole will return.") See Paula Span, The New Old Age / A Medicare Part D Coverage Gap Closes (Mostly), NEW YORK TIMES, Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2020, at D3, available at https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/17/health/medicare-drug-costs.html?searchResultPosition=1.

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