Rep. Steve Knight, CA-25, cosponsored a bill introduced this week that would prohibit insurance companies from denying coverage to individuals based on a pre-existing medical condition in the event that portions of the Affordable Care Act are repealed.
H.R. 1121, the Pre-Existing Conditions Protection Act, was introduced by Representative Greg Walden (OR-2), Chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. The bill aims to achieve three important goals for patients: guaranteed access to coverage, a prohibition on pre-existing condition benefit exclusions, and a ban on premium rating based off of health status.
“We need healthcare policy that provides individuals and families with access to quality and affordable health insurance, and an essential part of that is maintaining protections for people with pre-existing conditions,” said Knight. “I am proud to join Chairman Walden and my colleagues in the House in introducing this critical piece of legislation.”
The Affordable Care Act, also known as the ACA or Obamacare, established similar protections for individuals with pre-existing conditions when it was signed into law in 2010. Rep. Knight, who supports repairing the ACA by repealing the portions that are causing premiums to rise across the country while improving on the successful parts of the policy, identifies the Pre-Existing Conditions Protection Act as a large step forward.
“The topic of pre-existing conditions comes up often in our tele-town halls, surveys, and meetings with members of the community, and I’ve heard the concerns loud and clear,” continued Knight. “We must repair our healthcare system to make it work for all Americans, but that does not mean getting rid of recent changes to healthcare policy that are in now in place and working. The Pre-Existing Conditions Protection Act will make that guarantee for one of those critical changes.”
Like this:
Like Loading...
Related
Tweet This
Facebook
Digg This
Bookmark
Stumble
RSS
REAL NAMES ONLY: All posters must use their real individual or business name. This applies equally to Twitter account holders who use a nickname.
8 Comments
Interesting, considering this is a complete 180 degree turn on what Knight said in a meeting last week. He stated that he was for repealing the ACA completely and not working on any of the current format
The coward resurfaces, what happened, did you get tired of hiding in your office, avoiding your constituents phone calls, emails and letters? Can’t wait until the midterm elections.
Political fiction. Where is the whole republican plan? They’ve had 6 years to roll it out as they voted to repeal repeatedly. So along comes this to make it appear as if Knight actually cares but without seeing the actual plan. It is just political cover because he’s been confronted repeatedly with people’s desire to have insurance. Note the language he’s co-opted. He’s voted to repeal now he professes to want to “fix” it. Let’s see the pre-existing issue in the context of their plan, not just a ploy to look like he did something piecemeal for the 2018 election mailers.
I would be more efficient to keep the ACA. Make changes to the existing law instead of starting over. Half your base still think the ACA and Obamacare are two different programs.
This bill is a smokescreen -don’t fall for it. If Steve Knight thinks he can fool us with this lame attempt to cover up the true impact of repealing ACA, he is greatly mistaken. The truth is that the repeal of ACA (Obamacare as the right named it in order to disparage it which only confused people, many of whom don’t know that they are the same thing) will deprive the most needy of their healthcare and endanger lives. If Knight really wanted to help, he would listen to his constituents and look at what ACA needs in order to improve.
First of all, Trump already stated that no matter what, that would remain in any healthcare proposal, so what’s the point of your bill? Second, you are always talking about replacing Obamacare or ACA but I’ve yet to hear an in depth proposal from you. What’s your deal?
It seems like the ultimate irony that something the Republicans have tried so hard and for so long to repeal has nevertheless become necessary for many of their supporters, to the point that they now need to replace it with whatever they conjure up. I would have thought that they would already have something ready to fly after all this time. Perhaps they were waiting to see what the public’s’ reaction would be before taking action?
Dear Senator,
As much as we need this important law please allow us to take our out of pocket cap and lifetime caps from policy to policy also since we have no control of switching policies or carriers as employees.