EMILYs List Responds to the House Republicans’ Health Care Bill

March 7, 2017

EMILYs List Responds to the House Republicans' Health Care Bill

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Yesterday Republicans in the House of Representatives released a bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act. In response, Stephanie Schriock, president of EMILY's List, released the following statement:

“From tax credits that would disproportionally help the wealthy and leave millions of Americans scrambling to pay for essential health care, to provisions that would defund Planned Parenthood – an organization that provides critical care to countless Americans each year – this House Republican bill is a disaster. This legislation will hurt millions of women and families, send the health care system into free fall, and cripple our economy.” 

“EMILY's List women in Congress have long been instrumental in standing up to a Republican Party laser-focused on attacking women's access to health care. Make no mistake, we will continue our work to send more pro-choice Democratic women to the halls of the Capitol Hill and to decision-making tables around the country in order to fight back against this dangerous legislation and future attacks against Americans' access to health care.”

Background Information:

GOP Proposal Would Eliminate Federal Requirement to Cover Maternity Care. Under the House Republicans’ health care plan, previous federal rules under the Affordable Care Act that required health plans to cover maternity care would sunset at the federal level. “States would have the authority to set them instead. The impact on private, non-Medicaid plans would therefore vary by state. If a state removes maternity benefits, for example, that’s likely to make maternity coverage, among other services, immensely expensive, if available at all.” [Los Angeles Times, 3/06/17]

Republican Plan Eliminates Medicaid Expansion in 2020, Which Provides 12 Million People with Health Care. According to the National Partnership for Women and families, “An addition 12.88 million people enrolled in Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program between October 2013 and May 2015.” [National Partnership For Women and Families Fact Sheet, 10/2015]

Impact of Medicaid Expansion for Women’s Health. In states that expanded their Medicaid programs, an estimated “252,000 more women now receive Pap smears and an estimated 155,000 more women receive mammograms annually.” Additionally, Medicaid programs cannot charge copays for contraception, “and women who are newly eligible for Medicaid expansion now have access to the full range for FDA-approved contraceptives without copays.” [National Partnership For Women and Families Fact Sheet, 10/2015]

Defunding Planned Parenthood Takes Money Away from Mostly Low-Income Women and Men. “There are many ways for federal lawmakers to ‘defund’ Planned Parenthood, but this bill’s proposal is one of the most potentially devastating for the organization. It would bar Planned Parenthood from receiving hundreds of millions of dollars in federal Medicaid reimbursements — the majority of the organization’s federal funding. In practice, defunding the organization takes money away from its mostly low-income patients, who might be forced to seek care elsewhere if the government stopped subsidizing their visits to Planned Parenthood. Low-income women will be hit especially hard, but all Planned Parenthood patients may be affected if clinics are forced to close as a result of budget cuts.” [Vox, 3/06/17]

Republican Plan Will Allow Insurers to Charge the Elderly Five Times More than Younger Health Care Plan Participants. The House Republican plan “Allows insurers to charge older customers five times as much as younger ones and gives states the option to set their own ratio.” Whereas, the Affordable Care Act only allows “plans can charge their oldest customers only three times the prices charged to the youngest ones.” [New York Times, 3/06/17]

• There Are Over 41 Million Women Ages 45 to 64. [US Census Bureau, 2010]
• Premiums for Consumers Close to Retirement Age May Pay More for Coverage in the House GOP Repeal’s Tax Credit Structure. “Older consumers would get hit with a double whammy: not only may their premiums increase, but the restructured tax credits won’t go as far as those under the Affordable Care Act in subsidizing the premium cost, Certner says. The new tax credits are based on age, not on income, while in reality many of the consumers on the individual market are lower income, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation: about two-thirds of all enrollees have incomes at or below 250% of the poverty line, or approximately $31,250 for a single person.” [Time, 3/06/17]

EMILY’s List, the nation’s largest resource for women in politics, has raised over $500 million to support pro-choice Democratic women candidates – making them one of the most successful political organizations ever. Our grassroots community of over five million members helps Democratic women wage competitive campaigns – and win. We recruit and train candidates, support strong campaigns, research the issues that impact women and families, and turn out women voters. Since our founding in 1985, we have trained nearly 10,000 women to run and helped elect 116 women to the House, 23 to the Senate, 12 governors, and over 800 to state and local office. Forty percent of the candidates EMILYs List has helped elect to Congress have been women of color – including every single Latina, African American, and Asian American Democratic congresswoman currently serving.