Protecting Americans with Preexisting Conditions

Floor Speech

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Mr. COURTNEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise this afternoon to spotlight that, a couple days from now, the House of Representatives will be voting on H.R. 986, which is an act protecting Americans with preexisting conditions.

Again, this is a measure to reverse a decision that was made last October by the Trump administration. It was an administrative guidance in the Department of Health and Human Services which basically opened the doors for States to submit waivers from the Affordable Care Act's protections for patients, which, almost universally, are supported by the American people.

For example, in the law, it banned the use of preexisting condition exclusions by insurance companies both for individuals applying for insurance and for those who actually got insurance but then had their bills denied because of preexisting conditions.

With the stroke of a pen, in March 2010, the Affordable Care Act abolished that practice by insurance companies, which basically was a discriminatory practice for people, again, who, through no fault of their own, had medical conditions which they could not control.

It also eliminated lifetime limits. In other words, insurance companies capped the amount of medical bills that they would pay, so somebody with a cancer or a serious chronic condition would run into those caps and basically be in bankruptcy land.

And lastly, it established essential health benefits, which were defined by the Institute of Medicine, not a political organization, based on what, in fact, health insurance should cover, for example, behavioral health, maternal and child benefits, et cetera.

This decision by the Trump administration last October basically knocked out the guardrails in the ACA waiver process, which, again, every observer and commentator said would open the door again to insurance companies using the practice of preexisting condition exclusions.

For those who maybe have forgotten what that looked like, I have beside me here a chart which includes a brochure, which Humana insurance was using back in 2009 when it was selling health insurance. Again, it is touting great news for people who buy their own health insurance, new, flexible health coverage.

However, if you read the fine print, it went on to say that there is important information about preexisting conditions for these conditions which would not be covered: AIDS/HIV, alcohol or drug dependence, cancer, COPD, connective tissue disorder, Crohn's disease, diabetes, emphysema, heart attack or stroke, hepatitis, inpatient emotional or mental illness, organ or tissue transplant, or ulcerative colitis. Just in case maybe you survived that litmus test, it does go on to say: ``This list is not all inclusive; other conditions may apply.''

That is what health insurance looked like before 2010: People who, in good faith, were paying premium dollars for coverage, whether they were individuals, small businesses, or large employers, suddenly found, with the fine print back in those days, medical underwriting was excluding people from getting the coverage for the health insurance they thought they were buying.

Also, the rude awakening of people who had insurance suddenly having their bills reversed--again, in good faith, depending on insurance companies--to pay for an operation or for a hospitalization or a doctor's visit.

This country turned the page in 2010. It is time to, once and for all, say that those practices are a thing of the past.

Our bill this week, H.R. 986, will restore those patient protections which the Trump administration's executive order, last October, reversed. Hopefully, the people in this Chamber will listen to the universal support for these patient protections all across the country, Republicans and Democrats--the polling shows it is off the charts--and support this bill and block this executive order which would turn the clock back for American patients and America's healthcare system.

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