Melissa S. Razdrih
A judge ruled the Donald Trump administration can expand the sale of “junk” health care plans, Kathy Castor responds.
In a win for the Trump administration that furthers its goal of dismantling the Affordable Care Act (ACA), U.S. District Judge Richard Leon ruled that short-term “junk” health plans don’t undermine ACA and, therefore, can be sold.
Trump’s policy allowing for the sale of such health care plans took effect October 2018, but challengers claimed that selling the plans undermined the existing law by luring people away from the marketplace at the center of ACA.
Judge Leon disagreed, saying there was no evidence to suggest the new policy:
“Is having or will have the type of impact — substantial exodus from the individual market exchanges — that would threaten the ACA’s structural core.”
U.S. Rep. Castor, who introduced legislation in February that would protect consumers from these kinds of short-term health care solutions, released this statement after learning of the ruling:
“Junk plans are no substitute for meaningful health insurance but are instead cynical attempts to lure families and individuals into cheap and insufficient coverage. Junk plans do not protect you if you get sick, can discriminate against people with preexisting conditions and leave you on the hook for costly medical bills.
“The House of Representatives passed my bill, H.R. 1010, in the Strengthening Health Care and Lowering Prescription Drug Costs Act to help Americans from being defrauded by junk plans that do not cover preexisting conditions, hospital stays, prescription drugs and other basic care.
“By promoting junk plans, the Trump administration is sanctioning higher health care costs for American families. The Energy and Commerce Committee heard direct testimony on this point on March 12, 2019.”
“Such testimony and evidence led to adoption of my Strengthening Health Care and Lowering Prescription Drug Costs Act to halt the Trump administration’s expansion of these dangerous junk plans. It is imperative that the Senate immediately take up my legislation. I will continue to stand up and fight Republican efforts to take away comprehensive health coverage and increase health care costs – especially for my fellow Floridians and Americans with preexisting conditions.”
Castor sits on the U.S. House Energy & Commerce Committee, where she has oversight on federal health care initiatives, and helped to create the rules and standards in the ACA.
3 comments
Raven
July 20, 2019 at 1:22 pm
Calling health plans “junk” that she does not like, is Rep. Castor’s tactic to distract us away from her attempt to deny consumers the ability to buy plans they want. She wants to force consumers into plans she wants them to buy. To her, plans that do not “cover preexisting conditions, hospital stays, prescription drugs and other basic care” (whatever that is) are “junk”. But not all consumers need plans with this coverage at certain points in their lives. More choice is better than the one-best-way imposed by Rep. Castor. She is not protecting consumers; she is denying consumers the ability to buy plans they want and need. That’s cruel.
Kaye
July 20, 2019 at 1:46 pm
Thank you Raven you said it better than I did! Castor is working hard to limit free choice in a free country!!!
Kaye
July 20, 2019 at 1:41 pm
What’s junk to one person may be gold to another! Americans need to get over this nonsense indoctrination that they need comprehensive healthcare paying for weekly visits to the doctors office because they do not!!!
Young people in particular only need catastrophic insurance that pays for serious illness if they need to be hospitalized.
When I was a young woman raising children we didn’t have all this so-called comprehensive care. We had catastrophic insurance in case we got really sick and needed hospitalization. We all survived, did not go bankrupt and paid for doctors visits and medicines out of pocket.
All this Medicare for all and paying for a doctors visit every time your toe hurts is the socialists plan to control every aspect of your life!
Medicare needs to be left alone to take care of older citizens who have paid in their whole lives.
Wake up America! take responsibility for yourselves and stop stop stop depending on government!!!!
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