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.
Today's vote ensures that on January 1st, 160 million Americans will not see their taxes go up, over 2 million Americans will not lose unemployment insurance as they look for work, and 48 million Americans will not lose access to their doctor. Now we must immediately focus on extending these critical policies for a full year. I am hopeful that Republicans will work with us to do so quickly, and not take Americans to the brink once more.
Today Senator McConnell joined Senate Republicans and House Democrats in calling on House Republicans to prevent a tax increase on middle class families by passing the bipartisan Senate bill. If House Republicans refuse to act, on January 1 they will be responsible for 160 million Americans seeing a tax increase, 2.2 million Americans losing unemployment benefits, and 48 million Americans potentially losing access to their doctors. The American people deserve certainty that we will not allow any of those things to happen. That is why we must pass the bipartisan Senate compromise bill to prevent a tax increase from happening as we continue to work on a year-long extension. I therefore urge Speaker Boehner to either allow this to be passed by unanimous consent, or call the House back into session to pass the Senate bill.
It was rather remarkable this morning to watch the proceedings on the House floor. House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) wanted to try again to bring up the Senate’s bipartisan payroll-tax-break compromise, and instead of debating, Republicans literally walked away from the fight.
Mr. Van Hollen and I just participated on the Floor of the House and sought to seek recognition so that we could ask unanimous consent to place on the Floor and pass legislation which would give certainty and assurance to seniors, to the unemployed, and to 160,000 million Americans who are at risk of losing their tax cut on January 1st. The ability to have that certainty, to have that confidence, not just at this holiday period but in January and in February while we take action to try to come to an agreement on the one year extension that we want.
It is December 20th, and the Republicans are using it as a day to dissemble, pretending to support a tax cut for working Americans, while making it uncertain and delayed. We – of course, as we all know – could pass the Senate bill by 2pm today, send it to the President, and provide certainty to working Americans, come January 1st, that their taxes will not go up.
What they did was – in consultation with John Boehner – came to an agreement. That agreement had 89 Senators out of 100 agree on a proposition that would continue the middle class tax cut, would give certainty and assurance that as of January 1st there wouldn't be a tax [increase], would give 48 million Americans assurance that they would still have access to their Medicare doctors, and would give 2.3 million Americans an assurance they wouldn't lose their unemployment insurance and therefore their ability to support themselves and their families.
This is not in fact a partisan issue. Thirty-nine Republicans, 83 percent of Republicans in the United States Senate voted for this and the American people are saying if 83 percent of the Republicans and almost 100 percent of Democrats are for something, why can’t you come to agreement in Washington, DC? That’s the question we ought to be asking Speaker Boehner – why can’t you take yes for an answer? Why can’t we give the American people the assurance that they need to have, particularly at this holiday time?
This evening, House Republicans are expected to oppose a bipartisan Senate bill to extend year-end items. Their opposition is risking a tax hike on middle class families, cutting off assistance to unemployed Americans, and seniors losing access to their doctors. Republicans should work with Democrats to pass the bipartisan Senate plan that extends these critical policies as we work on a full-year extension.
In case you missed it yesterday in all the back and forth over year-end business, we here in the Democratic Whip Press Shop wanted to highlight a critical number: 2.5 million.
As we look back on the first session of the 112th Congress, it’s clear that Republicans have taken little action on Americans top priorities: job creation, economic growth, and deficit reduction. With Christmas just a couple of weeks away and millions of children sending their Christmas lists to Santa, Democrats have put together our own wish list for next year.