Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2020

Floor Speech

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Ms. CASTOR of Florida. Madam Chairwoman, my amendment is an important one for American families who are grappling with healthcare costs.

My amendment is an important one for the over 130 million Americans who have a preexisting health condition like cancer, diabetes, heart disease, asthma, or Alzheimer's.

My amendment takes aim at a proposed rule by the Trump administration that encourages insurance companies to issue junk insurance plans.

Everyone calls them junk insurance plans because they often don't cover vital health services. They may not cover a trip to the hospital or the emergency room. They may not cover prescription drugs. They may not cover mental health services that you need.

They are often marketed as a good deal, but they don't show a person the fine print that they may cap benefits. What they do is they allow discrimination against our neighbors who have a preexisting health condition.

This is not in question because in committee, I asked the HHS Secretary Azar point blank, I said: ``These short-term, limited- duration plans known as junk plans, they allow insurance companies to discriminate against you if you have a preexisting health condition; right, Mr. Secretary?''

He said: ``Yes.''

The law of the land after we passed the Affordable Care Act says that no longer are we going to allow insurance companies to discriminate against our neighbors who have preexisting health conditions. So how can the Trump administration be moving forward?

Well, they are moving forward with a proposed rule that would allow these plans to operate for 1 year, 2 years, or 3 years. That is not a short-term, limited-duration plan. These are junk.

Just over a month ago, Democrats here in the House stood up for our neighbors back home and passed a bill, H.R. 1010, that would halt the Trump administration's dangerous expansion of junk health plans that weaken the protection for Americans who have a preexisting condition.

Today, we are building on H.R. 1010 by offering this amendment with my colleagues, Representatives Underwood, Barragan, DeSaulnier, Spanberger, Moore, and Slotkin, to prohibit any funds from being used to implement, administer, or enforce the administration's expansion of junk plans. We are going to safeguard families from Republican attempts to push them into junk insurance plans that don't cover the essential healthcare services that they need.

The mandate from our neighbors back home is clear. They value affordable healthcare and the bedrock protection of the Affordable Care Act that prohibits discrimination based upon a preexisting health condition.

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Ms. CASTOR of Florida. Madam Chair, instead of ripping affordable coverage away, my Republican colleagues and the administration should be working with the Democrats to lower healthcare costs for American families and protect coverage for preexisting conditions. One way that we can do that is by supporting this amendment.

Madam Chair, I yield the balance of my time to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro), who is a healthcare champion.

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