Open Enrollment is Underway
In 2010, President Obama and Congressional Democrats put American families in control of their own health care and ended a system that put profits ahead of patients with the enactment of the Affordable Care Act. The open enrollment period for plans through the federal Health Insurance Marketplace for 2017 is now underway and will remain open through January 31.
The Affordable Care Act helps ensure Americans have access to quality, affordable health care. The law includes a “Patients’ Bill of Rights,” which ends insurance company abuses and provides better protections for consumers. Today, Americans with pre-existing conditions can no longer be discriminated against by insurance companies. Parents can now keep their children on their insurance plans up to age 26. Insurance companies are no longer allowed to put lifetime limits on coverage or drop people when they get sick. And, thanks to the law, over 10 million previously uninsured adults now have coverage, cutting the uninsured rate by 26%. In addition, overall U.S. health care spending has grown by just 3.8% per year in the years since the Affordable Care Act was passed - the lowest rate of growth over the past fifty years.
Democrats have also continued our efforts to defend and strengthen the Medicare program. Since the Affordable Care Act was enacted in 2010, Medicare’s costs – from premiums and deductibles to overall program spending – have slowed to well below the levels projected before the law passed. Also since 2010, more than 8.3 million seniors have received $12 billion in Medicare prescription drug savings. Additionally, Medicare Part B premiums will not go up for the second year in a row in 2015 – compared to premiums that skyrocketed by 112 percent between 2000 and 2008. In short, Medicare is providing better benefits to seniors, and the program is in sounder financial shape than before. This stands in stark contrast to the Republican record on Medicare, which is marked by repeated attempts to put forward a budget that ends the Medicare guarantee, eliminates the new benefits seniors are now seeing, and increases health care costs for seniors by more than $6,000.
While Democrats have been hard at work implementing these new benefits for American families and small businesses, Republicans have wasted time and taxpayer dollars by voting over 50 times to repeal these patient protections and put insurance companies back in control of your health care. Despite their promises to do so, they have never offered an alternate legislative plan to slow the growth of health care costs, stop insurance company abuses, ensure all Americans can access affordable health coverage, and reduce the deficit.
