West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin and Huntington community members discussed the issues of the Affordable Care Act Friday at the Cabell-Huntington Health Department.

Texas v United States is a court case that has potential to affect the world of insurance. If the ACA is found unconstitutional in the case, it will allow doctors and physicians to discriminate against its policyholders, including people with pre-existing conditions.

At the meeting, Manchin asked members what they were hearing from others in the community.

“I’m hearing more from parents of special needs kids with juvenile diabetes,” Reverend Barbara Chalfant, of the Presbyterian Organization of Charleston, said. “You have kids who are handicapped in different ways. They’re worried about what happens if I can’t cover my child’s needs? What happens when I’m gone, and they cannot get that insurance?”

580,000 West Virginians, including 147,000 children, are protected from annual and lifetime limits on claims payments under the ACA.

“It costs thousands of dollars every year for a juvenile diabetic,” Chalfant said. “For a juvenile diabetic or children with birth defects, they did nothing wrong. There’s nothing they can change that can get them out of that health system. Talk about breaking a parent’s heart, to know that your child will go without because you’re not there or you’re not able to pay for it.”

Community residents switch from health care to other solutions.

“We had 72,000 people die across the nation last year, and 64,000 people died the year before that with the opioid epidemic,” Mayor Steve Williams said. “That tells me that there is something systemically wrong in our health care system. Pre-existing conditions result in people self-medicating.”

Bishop Sam Moore of the Full Gospel Assembly told a story of a woman who moved back home to West Virginia from Kentucky who could not get her prescription filled because it was from out of state.

“She was getting street drugs to alleviate her pain,” Moore said. “That is not an uncommon situation.”

Texas v United States is currently in the fifth circuit.  If it fails in the fifth district, it will call for a petition for writ of certiorari.

“It basically says this is an important case that the Supreme Court should review,” Kate Cassling, legal liaison for Senator Manchin, said.

The Supreme Court would take the petition, review it and decide whether or not to hear the case. The fifth court and the district court are going to be a quicker process than the Supreme Court.

“Nothing’s going to go before the Supreme Court and get ruled upon before the end of the year,” Manchin said.

Gretchen Kalar can be contacted at [email protected].