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Health Care

House Democrats are committed to expanding access to quality, affordable health care coverage, strengthening protections for people with pre-existing conditions, and lowering prescription drug prices and the cost of health care overall.

House Democrats are committed to expanding access to quality, affordable health care coverage, strengthening protections for people with pre-existing conditions, and lowering prescription drug prices and the cost of health care overall.
 
Under President Biden and Congressional Democrats, the uninsured rate is at an all-time low. While Republicans vote against legislation to lower health care costs, House Democrats are working to bring down the overall costs of health care and increase access to health care coverage.
 
With the landmark Inflation Reduction Act, House Democrats took direct action to reduce health care costs for millions of Americans. For the first time, Medicare will be able to negotiate prescription drug prices for high-cost drugs. The law also caps out-of-pocket prescription drug costs for Medicare recipients at $2,000 annually and establishes a $35 cap for a month’s supply of insulin. The Inflation Reduction Act also protects progress made under President Biden to expand access to quality, affordable health care coverage by continuing the expanded premium tax credits originally passed in the American Rescue Plan, which lowered health care premiums for millions of working families.
 
This built upon the Affordable Care Act – enacted by President Obama and Congressional Democrats in 2010 – that has put American families in control of their own health care and ended a system that put profits ahead of patients. Since its enactment, 35 million Americans have gained access to quality, affordable health coverage. Americans with pre-existing conditions can no longer be discriminated against by insurance companies. Parents can now keep their children on their insurance plans up to age twenty-six. Insurance companies are no longer allowed to put annual or lifetime limits on coverage or drop people when they get sick. Additionally, thanks to the law, Medicare costs – from premiums and deductibles to overall program spending – have slowed to well below the levels projected before the law passed.
 
These reforms were crucial, especially when the COVID-19 pandemic struck but more action was needed.  That’s why House Democrats worked to enact legislation right away - without any Republican support - to ensure that testing, treatment, and vaccinations for COVID-19 would be covered with no out-of-pocket costs to Americans.

House Democrats remain committed to the goal of affordable, accessible health care for all.  


Health Care Related

House Democrats may file an ethics complaint if Republican congressional leaders do not open an investigation into whether bribes were offered to win passage of the Medicare prescription drug bill, a House Democratic leader said on Tuesday.
House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said Monday he will for a third time call on Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) to urge the ethics committee to investigate alleged House floor bribery, but if the Republican leader continues to balk, he vowed Democrats will be forced to file a complaint.
A House Democratic leader said yesterday that he plans to press for an investigation by the chamber's ethics committee of alleged Republican vote-buying during deliberations on a new Medicare drug plan last November, threatening to end an informal agreement among lawmakers to refrain from triggering inquiries against one another.
House Democrats are on the cusp of breaking the seven-year cease-fire with Republicans over filing ethics complaints, sources throughout the Caucus confirm.
leading House Democrat has called on Speaker J. Dennis Hastert to initiate an ethics investigation into accusations of bribery during last November's vote on the new Medicare drug plan
As Hefley well knows, the ethics committee doesn't need a House member to file a complaint before launching an investigation. But he's poised to use that as an excuse to bury the Medicare bribe story.
House Democratic Whip Steny H. Hoyer (MD) recently sent the attached letter to the Director of the Office of Personal Management Kay Coles James expressing deep reservations regarding the inclusion of Health Savings Accounts in the Federal Employee Health Benefits Program:
Comprehesive Clearinghouse of Budget Analysis
House Democratic Whip Steny H. Hoyer (MD) released the following statement today regarding the announcement by the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct late last night that it had initiated an “informal fact-finding” into allegations that Representative Nick Smith was offered bribes in return for a yea vote on the controversial Medicare Prescription Drug legislation in November 2003:
House Democratic Whip Steny H. Hoyer (MD) released the following statement today in response to a new Center on Budget and Policy Priorities report that shows that President Bush’s Fiscal Year 2005 Budget contains larger cuts in domestic spending than has been previously reported: