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.
Newly emboldened Republicans want to repeal the Obama health law, a symbol of all that they—and many voters—dislike about President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats' approach to governing. If you were a business executive and employer, would you really favor repeal?
The health reform law is helping small businesses make employee coverage more affordable. The law provides $40 billion in tax credits for small businesses to help them offer coverage to their employees and exempts 96 percent of all businesses from the shared responsibility requirement. The law will allow small businesses to band together to help them get the same rates on health insurance that bigger corporations get.
PolitiFact, the independent, Pulitzer Prize-winning website, declared that “government takeover” was their 2010 “Lie of the Year.”
With news that opponents of the new health-care law are actively trying to repeal the landmark legislation, small business owners have great reason to be concerned. Lawmakers and pundits in support of this move claim the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) hurts small businesses and our economic recovery, as evidenced in Scott Shane's Jan. 7 column "Small Business Isn't Celebrating Health-Care Reform." The facts say otherwise. While political rhetoric attacking health care reform may get headlines, it does nothing to lower the cost of health insurance for America's 28 million small businesses.
Republicans had a clear opportunity to live up to their promises of a fair and open process in the 112th Congress with the consideration of their Patient’s Rights Repeal Bill. By all accounts the broke that promise, refusing to allow any Democratic amendments and bringing it straight to the Floor without committee consideration. With virtually no discussion of the consequences, Republicans are bringing to a vote a bill that takes away the new freedoms that Americans have in their health care and takes us back to the days where insurance companies can deny care if you have a pre-existing condition, cancel coverage when you get sick and arbitrarily limit the amount of care you receive.
I am very pleased that the House has passed The James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act and it will now head to the President’s desk. This important legislation will provide care and compensation to the first responders and community residents exposed to toxins related to the 9/11 World Trade Center attacks.
Today’s court ruling—like the previous federal district rulings affirming the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act—represents an individual step in the judicial process. I have every confidence that when the legal process has been concluded, the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act will be upheld
I am pleased that today the House passed a year-long extension of the current Medicare physician payment rates and will now send the bill to the President’s desk for his signature. While this legislation will provide seniors with the security of continued access to the physician of their choice and our physicians with at least one full year of SGR relief, this remains a long-term problem that requires a permanent solution. It is my hope that we will revisit this problem in the coming months and that Republicans will join our efforts to secure a long-term solution.
I am disappointed Republicans chose to play politics with a bill that enjoys strong bipartisan support and would increase access to school meal programs, improve the standards of food provided, and help reduce childhood obesity. The real purpose of this motion to recommit was to delay this bill from being signed into law.
The Centers for Disease Control tell us that, over the past three decades, childhood obesity rates have tripled. Nearly one out of every five American children between the ages of six and 19 is obese. That doesn’t just mean a lifetime of health problems for those children—it means a public health crisis that we all pay for. We pay for it in billions of dollars in health care costs each year. And we even pay for it in military readiness, with at least 9 million young adults too overweight to serve in our armed forces, according to a coalition of retired senior military leaders.