Protecting Americans with Preexisting Conditions Act of 2019

Floor Speech

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Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, the House recently passed a piece of legislation called the Protecting Americans with Preexisting Conditions Act. The substance of this legislation would prevent a Trump administration rule from going into effect that would allow for States to license the kind of insurance plans that Senator Baldwin was referring to. These are plans that do not cover preexisting conditions or the essential healthcare benefits.

I am going to offer right now a unanimous consent request to proceed to immediate consideration of this bill. I suspect it will be objected to. After an opportunity for Republicans to object, I will speak to the merits of this legislation. So let me start with a request to bring this legislation that will protect people with preexisting conditions and the essential healthcare benefits to the floor.

Unanimous Consent Request--H.R. 986

Mr. President, my motion is as such: As if in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 90, H.R. 986, Protecting Americans with Preexisting Conditions Act of 2019; that the bill be considered read a third time and passed; and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

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Mr. MURPHY. Thank you, Mr. President. Again, I share in Senator Baldwin's disappointment that we can't move immediately to this legislation. This isn't a political game. These are individuals all across the country who are relying on us to make sure that they are not subject to the abuses of the market. They are relying on us to make sure we don't return to the days in which insurance companies could prevent you from getting healthcare simply because you were sick or return to the days when you bought an insurance product and then it didn't turn out to ultimately be insurance.

Let's be clear. The waiver that the President has allowed States to take advantage of would absolutely--it would by definition of the rule--allow for States to waive the preexisting condition requirement. The rule itself says that the innovation that happens at the State level does not have to comply with the essential healthcare benefits requirement. It says in the rule that you do not have to comply with preexisting conditions requirements. That is the reason that they are so cheap. So I am at a loss as to why we have Republicans on the floor saying that preexisting conditions will be protected under this rule. That is not true. The rule says that States do not have to comply with the preexisting requirement. It says that States do not have to cover essential healthcare benefits. That is why these junk plans are attractive, because they aren't actually insurance, and they are only insurance for people who are at the time very healthy.

We have to get on the same page here. We have to be reading from the same script. The fact of the matter is, the definition of the rule allows for protections for people with preexisting conditions to be discriminated against.

I am sorry that we weren't able to bring up this piece of legislation because healthcare insurance should be healthcare insurance. And what we worry about are two things. First is that by allowing for the marketing of these junk plans, you are going to have all sorts of people who today aren't sick jumping into those plans, coming off of the plans that protect people with preexisting conditions. The people who are going to be left behind on those regulated plans are people who are sick, people who have preexisting conditions. So you are, all of a sudden, bifurcating the insurance market. You are going to have a market for people who are currently healthy, and then you are going to have a market for people who are sick or have ever had a preexisting condition.

You do not have to be an actuary and you don't have to have taken classes in healthcare insurance economics to know that when that happens, rates skyrocket for people who have a preexisting condition-- for the millions of people around this country who have had a serious diagnosis at some point during their life.

So as you sell these junk plans, there is no way but for costs to go up. That is on top of the increases we saw last year. Last year, insurance companies priced in the costs of Trump administration sabotage. They priced into their premiums the attacks on our healthcare system from the Republican Congress.

In many States, we saw insurance plans pushing 60 percent, 40 percent, and, in some cases, 80 percent increases in premiums. Now on top of that, for sick people, for people with preexisting conditions, the rates are going to be even bigger because of the flight of those without preexisting conditions into marketplaces set up specifically for them.

The second thing we worry about is that these junk plans market themselves as insurance, but they aren't. Here is a list of things that I would generally consider to be covered under my insurance plan.

If I bought an insurance plan, if I handed over a check to the insurance company, I kind of think that if I go to the emergency room, I am not going to have to pay for it out of my pocket. I am thinking to myself: Well, you know what, if I need prescription drugs, they are going to cover some of that. Well, if I have a mental health diagnosis, doesn't insurance cover my head as well as the rest of my body?

These are the things that I would assume that insurance covers, but these junk plans don't cover these things.

Junk plans do not cover trips to the emergency room. Junk plans often don't cover hospitalizations. They don't cover prescription drugs. Almost none of them cover maternity care. Your checkups might not be covered under a junk plan. Preexisting conditions will cost you more. Contraception isn't going to be in lots of these plans. They are not required to cover lab services or pediatrics. Mental health isn't going to be in many of these junk plans. As for rehab services, if you get injured, you are not going to find those in some of these plans. And if you have a chronic disease, there is nothing in the law that requires treatment for those to be covered.

So all of a sudden, as for the things you thought insurance covered, they don't cover it, and you have been paying a premium for years. Then, when you finally need access to the system, it is not there. That is what these plans can do. That is what the law and the Trump administration rule allows States to license as insurance. And that is why we are on the floor today, to ask--to plead--to our colleagues to bring legislation before this body, either Senator Baldwin's legislation or Representative Kuster's legislation that has already passed the House, that would stop these junk insurance plans from being sold all around this country, which will trick many Americans into believing they have insurance when they don't and will dramatically raise the cost of care potentially in many States for people who have serious preexisting conditions.

I am not surprised at the objection to both of our unanimous consent requests. Nevertheless, I am disappointed in it. We will continue to be down here on the floor for as much time as it takes to try to rally the whole of this body to protect people with preexisting conditions, to fight back against the sabotage of the Affordable Care Act and the healthcare system by this President. Hopefully, one day we will be successful.

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