For Immediate Release: 
September 23, 2010

The Real Republican Agenda: GOP Ready to Repeal Patient Protections & Put Insurance Companies Back in Control of America

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Today, Republicans unveiled their agenda to give insurance companies control over Americans' health care. They have no real reform plan to rein in costs and protect patients. In fact, Republicans would take us back to the status quo of skyrocketing health care costs and unfair insurance practices.

 

Today, Republicans unveiled their agenda to give insurance companies control over Americans' health care. They have no real reform plan to rein in costs and protect patients. In fact, Republicans would take us back to the status quo of skyrocketing health care costs and unfair insurance practices.

 
This week, as the health reform law’s “Patient’s Bill of Rights” goes into effect and provides a number of key patient protections for all Americans, Republicans are unveiling an agenda that names repealing the law and taking those benefits away a top priority.
In their push against health reform, Republicans continue to stand with insurance companies. After presiding over a period during which premiums doubled and the number of uninsured topped 40 million, Republicans still don’t have a real solution.
 
Republicans do not have a REAL plan to prevent insurance companies from:
  • Denying coverage to children with pre-existing conditions.
  • Putting arbitrary lifetime and annual limits on the coverage Americans are entitled to—even when they need it most.
  • Denying coverage for needed care without providing patients a chance to appeal to an independent third party.

The Republican approach to health care is a bonanza for insurance companies—and a disaster for the middle class.

They pair repealing these new insurance reforms with opening up insurance markets across state lines – without appropriate safeguards.  Consumers will lose not just new federal protections, but many will see their state protections jeopardized as well, as the insurance industry races to states with the weakest laws and the least consumer protections, and patients lose out. 

And if the health reform law was repealed, it would not only take away drug discounts for older Americans in Medicare Part D going into effect in January, Republicans will be stripping the Secretary of tools she uses to make sure seniors pay fair prices for their Medicare Advantage services – tools that allowed her to reduce seniors’ out-of-pocket costs by over $150 million for 2011 alone.
 
Their health care plan is also notable for what it fails to include:  the fact that the most comprehensive Republican reform plan to date is based upon the privatization of the Medicare program.
 
Lacking a real plan on health care, it is clear that Republicans are doubling down on failed policies. The House Republican repeal plan will do nothing more than take us back to status quo that put insurance companies in control and failed too many American families.
 
 
 

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