Save My Care bus to rally Knoxville ACA supporters Tuesday

The Tennessee Health Care Campaign and the Save My Care organization are bringing the Save My Care bus tour to Market Square on Tuesday to protest repeal of the Affordable Care Act.

The Save My Care bus, which plans to be in downtown Knoxville at 3 p.m. Tuesday, is part of the organization’s initiative to gather grassroots support for the ACA, established during the Obama administration. The bus tour has made dozens of stops in cities across the country, encouraging supporters to voice their opposition to the ACA's repeal.

Tony Garr, a volunteer board member for the Tennessee Health Care Campaign, explained that the bus tour was part of a larger national movement to show public support for the ACA despite its flaws.

“The ACA got rid of pre-existing conditions, let children under 26 stay on their parents’ plan, added subsidies. All of those are things that we think are very positive,” Garr said, “but at the same time we acknowledge that the ACA is not perfect and needs some work.”

Garr said bringing the Save My Care bus to Knoxville will help bolster support for the ACA and showcase the healthcare improvements it has made.

“Save My Care is part of a national network which our organization supports,” he said. “The fundamentals of the ACA are solid. It just needs to be fixed instead of repealed. This helps draw attention to the good that the ACA has done.”

A similar event was held in Nashville’s Centennial Park on Feb. 22 and featured performances from local artists.

Save My Care claims that more than a half-million Tennesseans are at risk of losing their health care if the ACA is repealed. About 40,000 East Tennesseans who rely on the ACA for health insurance could fall through the cracks in 2018 if Congress and President Donald Trump's administration fail to repeal, repair or replace it, patients and advocates have said.

In January, Blue Cross Blue Shield pulled out of three major Tennessee metropolitan areas, including Knoxville.

Recently, Humana, the sole Obamacare exchange insurer for the greater Knoxville metropolitan area, announced plans to exit the Affordable Care Act exchange next year, citing an "unbalanced risk pool," about a month after a proposed merger with Aetna was struck down in a federal court.

"This is a decision by Humana based entirely on our company’s continuing unsustainable experience with our individual business" with people buying individual plans on the Exchange," Humana spokeswoman Kate Marx has said.

Tennessee is one of 19 states that have not expanded Medicaid, or TennCare. Currently, TennCare is available only to lower-income households, children, pregnant women, and disabled and their caretakers, those in nursing care and women with breast or cervical cancer. A state task force is determining what kind of expansion, if any, would close coverage gaps.

More information about the bus tour is available online at www.savemycare.org.