Letter: The AHCA is an abysmal failure

This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2017, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

The term "American exceptionalism" has many meanings.

In the context of health care, it means that the United States is the only country in the industrialized world that fails to provide universal health care to its residents.

As a consequence, we spend more per capita on health care than any other country while achieving among the worst outcomes.

If the shameful and catastrophic American Health Care Act recently passed by the House becomes law, this situation will become even worse, particularly for the most vulnerable among us. Many will no longer be able to afford health insurance, illnesses will go untreated, surgeries will go unperformed and bankruptcies and premature deaths will increase in frequency. All this in order to provide yet another tax cut for those who need it least.

Gandhi once said that the true measure of any society can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable members. When measured by this standard, the AHCA is an abysmal failure. It must not become law.

Craig Rushforth

Kaysville