Next Steps in Health Care

Statement

Dear Friend,

After months in which the Congress had been consumed by debate about repealing the Affordable Care Act, members of both parties are now working on improving the ACA and constraining healthcare costs. This is a very positive development and one that all Americans should welcome, because it means that the chance of improving the healthcare system just got a lot better, and millions of Americans won't be losing their coverage.

Getting to this point wasn't easy. Since January, several versions of a repeal have been brought to a vote in the House and Senate. According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, each of those "health care" bills would have caused tens of millions of Americans to lose their insurance, severely jeopardizing both their health and long-term economic security.

It's been a frustrating process, because if we had started out by having a real conversation about how we can make changes to the Affordable Care Act to improve quality, affordability, and access to care, I truly believe we could have worked out bipartisan solutions a long time ago. There is no question that healthcare under the ACA can be improved, particularly in the individual market, but instead of exploring such reforms, the GOP leadership in the House and Senate undertook an unprecedented and closed process to push through a bill without hearings, amendments, or real substantive debate.

Last month, the most recent Republican attempt to repeal the ACA failed passage in the Senate by a 51-49 vote. If the so-called "skinny repeal" had passed, it would have stripped insurance from 15 million Americans and caused premiums to skyrocket. In a logic that could only make sense in Washington, most Republican Senators actually feared that their own bill could become law. They acknowledged that the bill would wreak havoc on insurance markets, and said they would only vote yes if they were guaranteed it would never be enacted. Other versions of the bill were even worse and would have kicked over 20 million off their care.

I was relieved that this most recent push for repeal fell short (thanks to the leadership of Republican Senators Collins, Murkowski and McCain, and the entire Democratic Caucus in the Senate), and grateful for the many Americans around the nation who spoke up about what access to affordable healthcare meant to them. The stakes are much too high to simply pass something, anything, without consideration of the consequences.

After each legislative failure, President Trump doubled down on his threat to "let Obamacare implode," but in reality, it was the President who was doing all he could to sabotage the health insurance that millions of Americans count on. He was doing this by creating uncertainty in the markets, threatening to end cost-sharing reduction (CSR) payments which forces insurance companies to dramatically raise premiums (20 percent or more immediately), and cutting off marketing to young people so that the risk pools are older and more expensive.

Ensuring that every American has access to quality, affordable health care should not be a partisan issue. The good news is that there is bipartisan support for continuing the CSR payments, while simultaneously making changes that improve the ACA and stabilize the individual markets. In the House, members from both sides of the aisle are working together to improve and strengthen the markets. This is a good start, but we are not out of the woods yet. The President is continuing to take action to undermine the ACA even as members of both parties now work to improve it, and it is still unclear if the House Leadership will allow such efforts to gain traction through hearings, legislative markup and real debate.

The Affordable Care Act isn't perfect, but it expanded access to affordable healthcare for millions, and started to lower the rapid clip at which healthcare costs had been escalating. Healthcare costs are still too great, but there are steps we can take that won't start us back at the beginning Our end goal must be universal healthcare for each and every single American.

You can always share your thoughts through Facebook or Twitter. As always, I welcome hearing from you on these and any other issues, and hope that you will stay in touch.

Sincerely,

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