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.
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.
With just seven days until the end of the fiscal year, it is imperative that Congress pass a bill to prevent a government shutdown.
In 2007, the pharmaceutical company Mylan acquired the patent for the EpiPen. Since then, they have dramatically increased the price of this emergency epinephrine injector.
As millions of American children returned to school over the past few weeks, parents and caregivers had long shopping lists filled with necessary items: notebooks, pencils, calculators, and lunchboxes, to name a few.
Today’s meeting of the Select Panel to consider recommending contempt of Congress charges against StemExpress is nothing more than the continuation of a months-long witch-hunt that is putting the lives of doctors, researchers, first responders, and patients at risk.
This week, I released a report that demonstrates how the American economy has performed consistently better under Democratic presidents than Republican ones.
This afternoon, I met with Mayor Weaver and representatives from Flint, Michigan, who are Washington today to urge Congress to act in response to the poisoning of the city’s water supply with lead.
As Congress returned this week from the August district work period, House Republicans continued to ignore critical issues that need to be addressed.
House Democratic Whip Steny H. Hoyer (MD) released the following statement today on the dramatic price increase for EpiPens.
I offer my deepest condolences to the families and friends who lost loved ones in this week’s attack in Nice, France.
This was a difficult week for our nation following the recent deaths of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, as well as the shootings in Dallas, which took the lives of five police officers.