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.
The latest misrepresentation about health care reform legislation is that it will take money away from Social Security. This is false, the bill does not increase Social Security taxes.
Democrats from across the spectrum continue to announce their support for passing health care reform, legislation that will bring down costs and produce long-term savings for families and businesses.
Democrats from across the spectrum continue to announce their support for passing health care reform, legislation that will bring down costs and produce long-term savings for families and businesses.
As we head into the final stretch on health reform, what else will the Republicans come up with to deceive the public, derail reform, and protect the insurance companies and the status quo?
When it comes to the deficit and what steps need to be taken to return our nation to surplus, Republicans have a clear history of being wrong.
The Congressional Budget Office and the Joint Committee on Taxation just released a preliminary estimate of an amendment in the nature of a substitute to H.R. 4872, the Reconciliation Act of 2010
There has been some effort to mischaracterize the CBO estimate of health care legislation to suggest that the reconciliation bill weakens IPAB because the savings attributed to Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB) are lower than in the Senate bill.