FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Sherry Riggs didn’t stay awake to find out who the next president would be. Her heart literally couldn’t take it.
Riggs, a 55-year-old barber, has been ordered to avoid stress after a heart attack and bypass surgery last month. Last year, she had a stent put in, paid for by insurance she purchased under President Barack Obama’s health overhaul.
“If it wasn’t for Obamacare, I really would be dead twice now,” said Riggs who recently divorced and has been staying at a friend’s house In Fort Pierce since leaving the hospital a few weeks ago.
Now she’s “terrified,” Riggs said, that if President-elect Donald Trump repeals the Affordable Care Act, “I’m going to be gone.”
The Obama plan has expanded coverage to about 20 million more Americans, and no state has more at stake than Florida, where more residents signed up than anywhere else.
Trump campaigned vowing to dismantle the 2010 health law as soon as he takes office. But replacing it will take time, and what a new system would look like has never been clear.
Some features could stay, including its protection of coverage for people with pre-existing conditions. The requirement to buy health insurance or pay a fine will likely go. House Speaker Paul Ryan has proposed tax credits instead as an incentive to buy insurance.
