WASHINGTON DC (June 30, 2020) — As Americans face both the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting severe economic downturn, the House passed The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Enhancement Act, a bill that will provide much-needed relief by making health-care and prescription-drugs more affordable. The legislation also expands access to health-care, strengthens protections for people with pre-existing conditions, reduces racial and ethnic health-coverage disparities, and reverses the harmful actions taken to weaken The Affordable Care Act (ACA).
“Throughout the debate over health-care, my number-one goal has been to ensure Iowans have access to quality, affordable coverage. Since the passage of The Affordable Care Act, it has faced relentless efforts to dismantle the law and take away important protections for people, including the over one million Iowans with pre-existing conditions,” said Representative Dave Loebsack. “For far too many Iowans, the cost of health-care has become unaffordable. We must take action to lower the costs of medical services and prescription drugs and not remove coverage and protections from those most in need.”
The bill significantly increases the ACA’s affordability subsidies to be more generous and cover more middle-class families. For the first time, no person will have to pay more than 8.5 percent of their income for a benchmark silver plan in the ACA marketplaces, and many Americans will see their premiums cut in half or more:
- A family of four earning $40,000 would save nearly $1,600 in premiums each year.
- A 64-year-old earning $57,420 would save more than $8,700 in premiums each year.
- A single adult with income of $31,900 would see premiums cut in half.
- An adult earning $19,140 would see premiums cut to zero, saving $800 dollars a year.
Additionally, the bill:
- Negotiates for lower prescription-drug prices, delivering the power to negotiate lower drug-prices so that Americans no longer have to pay more for our medicines than what is charged for the same drugs overseas;
- Expands coverage, pressing Medicaid expansion hold-out states with new carrots and sticks to adopt coverage for the 4.8 million Americans excluded from coverage, while restoring the outreach and advertising funding that the Administration has slashed to prevent Americans from learning about the affordable health-coverage available to them under the ACA;
- Combats inequity in health coverage faced by communities of color, expanding more affordable coverage to vulnerable populations and fighting the maternal mortality epidemic by requiring states to extend Medicaid or CHIP coverage to new mothers for a full year post-partum; and
- Cracks down on junk plans and strengthens protections for people with pre-existing conditions, reversing the Trump Administration’s expansion of junk health-insurance plans that do not provide coverage for essential medical treatments and drugs and that are allowed to discriminate against people with pre-existing medical conditions.
