Wednesday, March 1, 2017 8:36 am

To the Editor:

The Affordable Care Act is no longer affordable, it never was. Average premiums for Obamacare plans will go up 25 percent this year with some states seeing as much as a 116 percent increase. Health insurance companies are dropping out of the exchanges left and right, forcing customers in 70 percent of U.S. counties to buy insurance from only one or two companies.

Since 2010, Republicans have promised to fully repeal Obamacare, campaigned on full repeal, and voted over 60 times to repeal parts or all of this disastrous healthcare law. Now that the American people gave Republicans unified control of the government, there are no more excuses.

Congress began the repeal process by passing the FY 2017 "shell" budget resolution (S. CON. RES. 3) last month, which instructed the relevant congressional committees to write the Obamacare repeal bill. Sadly, Republicans blew past their January 27th self-imposed deadline to write the bill even though repeal language already exists from a bill Congress passed in 2015.

The Obamacare repeal timeline is starting to slip. The longer Congress waits to repeal Obamacare, the greater the pain millions of Americans face on the exchanges and the less likely repeal will ever happen. The American people are so close to taking back their health care. Our Republican leaders in Congress have one last chance to make it a reality. There are no more excuses.

Respectfully,

Gregory Johnson

Bradyville