Executive Calendar

Floor Speech

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Mr. PETERS. Mr. President, the topic of healthcare affordability should unite us as a common cause. We all need healthcare, whether young or old or male or female, rich or poor.

Not one of us will go through life without experiencing a major health concern. Even if we have a clean bill of health today, we all face the prospect of accidents, illnesses, and the inherent universal health challenges of aging.

The Affordable Care Act is not perfect, but it has moved us toward a shared goal of making healthcare more affordable for everyone. Most significantly, the Affordable Care Act prevents insurers from denying coverage or increasing premiums because of a preexisting condition. This critical protection has been widely and wildly popular, and rightly so. If you don't have a preexisting condition, you probably have a family member who does.

The Affordable Care Act also requires plans to cover a full set of benefits that enrollees will realistically need over the course of their lives, and, overall, it encourages Americans to get their health insurance so that they will have the appropriate support when they need it the most.

I will be the first to recognize that there is room for improvement in our healthcare law, but we need to be working together to fix it, not allowing the Trump administration to continue its relentless push to undermine the affordability of healthcare. Since the beginning of his administration, President Trump has taken every possible step to weaken consumer protections in health insurance, all the while misinforming the public about what the real impact will be on their daily lives. But Americans right now are feeling the impact. For too many hard-working families, health insurance and healthcare costs are still not affordable. Today, premiums are going up, healthcare prices are soaring, and the burden of cost is increasingly shifted to the patient.

We should be focused on ways to strengthen our healthcare system so that it lowers out-of-pocket costs, removes barriers to healthcare, and incentivizes cost efficiency. But the flawed Trump administration policy the Senate voted on earlier today is a step in the wrong direction. It is a step toward terrible coverage for consumers who will not understand what their plan fails to cover until they need it.

We are seeing yet another Trump administration effort to roll back parts of the Affordable Care Act that are actually working every day to help Americans. President Trump is creating a new loophole for some insurers to ignore the Affordable Care Act's central patient protections. This is moving us back toward a period where insurance companies could discriminate against Americans based on their conditions, such as diabetes, cancer, arthritis, and even pregnancy-- yes, even pregnancy. Millions of Michiganders rely on the Affordable Care Act's safeguards for preexisting condition coverage.

Americans should have the power to choose their own healthcare, but unfortunately this administration has it backward. President Trump wants to give more power to insurers to not only choose who they cover but also what they cover.

The Affordable Care Act's 10 essential healthcare benefits are truly just that; they are indeed essential. The list includes things like prescription drugs, hospitalizations, and preventive care. Before the Affordable Care Act, we saw insurance companies neglect to cover services like maternity care, substance abuse disorder treatment, and mental health care. These are all truly essential elements of any true plan.

The Trump administration is allowing for risky plans that make insurance companies money while shifting costs to taxpayers and Michiganders who choose to cover these essential health benefits. The Trump policy will create a parallel market that targets only relatively healthy, less costly individuals, and that is why I am deeply disappointed by today's vote and the actions of this administration.

The true message President Trump is sending to the public is that he wants you to be misinformed. He wants you to make bad decisions and buy these flawed plans, increasing the profits of insurers.

American taxpayers will be left with the bill when patients find out that their insurance and all of the money they have put into that insurance over so many years simply does not cover their healthcare needs when they need it the most.

No matter where you live, how much money you make, or what your health record looks like, no one should be forced to make the impossible choice between seeking medical assistance or paying the bills for other basic necessities. Regardless of what the health condition is or when it arises, all Americans deserve certainty that their decision to go to a doctor will not push them into bankruptcy.

Let's be clear that any Member who voted to support the Trump administration's efforts to undermine the ACA casts a vote today against coverage protections for preexisting conditions and against affordable, quality healthcare for all American families.

Thank you.

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