WASHINGTON, D.C. – Republicans in the U.S. Congress today introduced a bill that would be a replacement for the faltering Affordable Care Act, sometimes called Obamacare.
The Patient Freedom Act of 2017 would ensure there is no gap in coverage for those relying on the current system, two Senators say.
U.S. Senators Bill Cassidy and Susan Collins this afternoon to urged their colleagues to support the Patient Freedom Act of 2017, which they introduced today with Senators Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) and Johnny Isakson (R-GA). Senators Cassidy and Collins spoke about their legislation at a press conference Monday morning.
The Patient Freedom Act of 2017 would address the individual market’s downward spiral under Obamacare by: returning power to the states; increasing access to quality, affordable health care for all Americans; improving patient choice; and beginning to bring coverage to the nearly 30 million Americans who still do not have health insurance.
Republicans say the Patient Freedom Act (PFA) of 2017 would take power from Washington and return it to state capitols in order to increase access to affordable health insurance and improve patient choice, while preserving important consumer protections. This proposal empowers patients by eliminating costly and burdensome mandates, making enrollment easy, requiring price transparency, and restoring state authority to set rules for their health insurance markets and giving patients power to make their own health care decisions.
The act repeals: This proposal repeals burdensome federal mandates imposed by the Affordable Care Act, such as the individual mandate, the employer mandate, the actuarial value requirements that force plans to fit into one of four categories, the age band requirements that drive up costs for young people, and the benefit mandates that often force Americans to pay for coverage they don’t need and can’t afford.
The act keeps: This proposal keeps essential consumer protections, including prohibitions on annual and lifetime limits, prohibition of pre-existing condition exclusions, and prohibitions on discrimination. It also preserves guaranteed issue and guaranteed renewability and allows young adults to stay on their parents’ plan until age 26, as well as preserving coverage for mental health and substance use disorders.
The act repeals protection for pre-existing conditions. Once you’ve had a heart attack, your insurer can elect to exclude coverage for cardiac events the next renewal. Not such great news.
There are now seven proposals from the Republicans going through committee.
What’s this? No comment from the liberal peanut gallery.
Let me take a shot in the dark here…you did not even read the proposal.