March 23, 2024 Press Release Wanted to be sure you saw this Medium post by Congressman Steny H. Hoyer (MD-05) published today on the fourteenth anniversary of the signing of the Affordable Care Act. To read the post, click here or see below: Medium Fourteen Years Later, the ACA is Alive and Well — so are Republicans’ Threats to Undo it By Congressman Steny H. Hoyer March 23, 2024 Image Fourteen years ago today, I stood a few feet behind President Obama as he signed the Affordable Care Act (ACA) into law. That simple stroke of his pen not only changed lives; it saved them. In an instant, millions of families across the country were freed from the fear that an unforeseen health complication would lead to financial ruin. Americans with preexisting conditions gained access to protections from the discrimination that had prevented them from accessing life-saving care. Countless other people who had never been able to afford health care finally could thanks to the ACA’s historic expansions to Medicaid. It took a lot more than the eleven letters of the President’s signature to make the ACA into law. As the House Majority Leader who put the ACA on the Floor and helped secure its passage, I knew that day was the culmination of many tense debates, late-night calls, and difficult votes. Crucially, I understood that moment also marked the start of a new effort — one to defend that historic law and build on its progress. That mission continues fourteen years later. Image The 117th Congress proved decisive in preserving and expanding the ACA. In 2021, I helped lead our Democratic House Majority in passing the American Rescue Plan to keep American families afloat during the unprecedented public-health and financial crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition to putting vaccine doses in arms, children in schools, money in pockets, and American workers back on the payroll, the American Rescue Plan also cut monthly health care premiums for families who get coverage through the ACA exchange. A year later, we extended those tax credits with the Inflation Reduction Act. Today, these lower health care costs are making a positive difference in the lives of the record-breaking 21.3 million Americans who enrolled in coverage through the ACA marketplace for 2024. This year, they will save an average of $800 on their premiums. For the 19,000 ACA enrollees that I represent in Maryland’s Fifth District, those savings will be even greater: roughly $2,700 a year on average. These savings are only one of the ways Democrats have expanded Americans’ access to quality, affordable health care in recent years. The Inflation Reduction Act also capped the monthly cost of insulin at $35 for our nation’s 4 million diabetic seniors on Medicare. Additionally, it allowed Medicare to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies to lower prescription drug prices for America’s seniors. Just this past December, North Carolina became the fortieth state to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. Our work isn’t finished, however. Democrats are committed to renewing the Inflation Reduction Act’s health care tax credits before they expire next year. We will keep fighting for all 50 states to expand Medicaid and to close the coverage gap. As President Biden promised in his State of the Union, we will not yield until our policies lowering prescription drug and insulin costs extend to all Americans. Critically, I am determined to overcome Republicans’ efforts not only to halt this progress but to reverse it. Their desire to repeal the ACA and restrict Americans’ access to affordable health care is nothing new. Neither is their utter lack of a plan to replace it with, as former President Trump put in vague terms in 2015, “something terrific.” Nearly a decade later, he remains just as determined to undo the ACA and just as clueless as to how that decision would devastate America. Rest assured, repealing the ACA would also change millions of lives in an instant — but for the worse. Overnight, more than 135 million Americans under the age of 65 living with preexisting conditions would suddenly lose access to protections against health care discrimination. The 40 million Americans who receive coverage thanks to the ACA’s policies would be at danger of losing their health care. The uninsured rate, which has fallen from 16 percent to 7.2 percent since the ACA was enacted, would start to climb. So too would the number of preventable deaths that occur across the country. I am confident America will not have to face these consequences, because the Affordable Care Act has become a quintessential part of American life — and because Democrats are committed to ensuring that it remains so.
