Senate GOP Acts to Undermine Affordable Care Act in Tax Bill

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Action would mean that millions would lose access to health care. The cost of this proposal is too high, and women and families would pay the highest price of all.

Washington, D.C. - This week, Senate GOP leaders amended their tax bill to repeal the individual mandate requirement – a critical provision of the Affordable Care Act that could result in 13 million people losing access to health coverage. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that individual market premiums would increase by 10 percent.

The individual mandate encourages healthy individuals to sign up for health insurance, keeps premiums low for all Americans, and is essential to the functionality of the ACA. It is also noteworthy that the individual mandate originated as a conservative idea to stabilize markets.

“It’s unconscionable for this Congress to slip a health care repeal measure into a tax bill. Republicans in Congress prove that they’ll stop at nothing to erase President Obama’s legacy, whatever the terrible cost to women, families, and communities everywhere. Annually, more than 23,000 Washingtonians access healthcare through DC’s health insurance exchange, DC Health Link. In the face of failure to fully repeal the ACA earlier this year, the Senate is now destroying the ACA by dismantling its most essential components. We cannot allow this to happen,” said Dr. Laura Meyers, President and CEO of the Planned Parenthood of Metropolitan Washington, DC Action Fund.

 

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Planned Parenthood of Metropolitan Washington D.C. Action Fund (PPMWAF) is Planned Parenthood of Metropolitan Washington D.C.’s affiliated 501(c)(4) advocacy organization. PPMW-AF advocates legislatively, politically and electorally in Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia for priorities that are part of PPMW’s mission, which includes fighting for women to be able to make their own reproductive choices.