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Industry Groups Push Against House Health Reform Bill

News  |  By Gregory A. Freeman  
   May 03, 2017

AARP and the Catholic Health Association are urging Congress not to approve the modified American Health Care Act. The current bill would throw millions of people off insurance rolls and hit older Americans disproportionately, they say.

Two powerful healthcare industry groups are chiming in on the future of the American Health Care Act, and neither is cheering for the bill's passage. At least not in its current form.

AARP Executive Vice President Nancy LeaMond issued a statement saying the amended House bill would create an "Age Tax," increase premiums, eliminate protections for pre-existing conditions, cut the life of Medicare, and give sweetheart deals to big drug and insurance companies. House leaders are likely to pay attention to the comments, as the group has nearly 38 million members and is one of the most powerful lobbying groups in the country.

In a letter sent to all 435 members of the U.S. House of Representatives, AARP restated its strong opposition to the bill, saying the legislation will have a significant harmful impact on the health of millions of older Americans ages 50 to 64, as well as other vulnerable groups, including poor seniors and disabled children and adults.

"This harmful legislation still puts an Age Tax on older Americans and puts vulnerable populations at risk through a series of backdoor deals that attempts to shift responsibility to states. Older Americans need affordable health care services and prescriptions," the letter says. "This legislation still goes in the opposite direction, increasing insurance premiums for older Americans and not doing anything to lower drug costs."

The AARP president promised to let the group's members know how their Representative votes on the bill in its newsletters, publications, on social media and in other formats.

The Catholic Health Association (CHA) also is critical of the House bill, saying the legislation to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act would significantly undermine access to healthcare for many who desperately need it.

CHA issued a statement referring to an analysis by the Congressional Budget Office and the Joint Committee on Taxation showing that in the first year under the legislation 14 million people who had just gotten health insurance would lose it, and approximately 10 million more would lose their coverage in later years.

CHA is the nation's largest group of not-for-profit health systems and facilities.

"The recent amendments to the bill, intended to make it more palatable to those who did not support it initially, are even more disastrous for people who have just gotten healthcare," the CHA statement says.

"Changing the current rules to undermine essential benefits requirements and protections for people with pre-existing conditions, as well as allowing insurers to set annual and lifetime caps on the care they cover, would seriously undermine health security and leave many individuals with substandard protection. Even the proposed state high-risk pools would be an inadequate and under-funded solution to a problem that need not exist in the first place."

CHA claims the legislation is not really a healthcare bill at all, but instead is intended to "take significant funding allocated by Congress for health care for very low-income people and use that money for tax cuts for some of our wealthiest citizens. This is contrary to the spirit of who we are as a nation, a giant step backward that should be resisted." 

Gregory A. Freeman is a contributing writer for HealthLeaders.


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