Earlier this week, Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA), along with representatives from conservative think tanks, released a new plan to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Like last year’s repeal bills, this new repeal plan would have severe negative effects on health insurance coverage, access to care, and the health and financial security of millions of Americans. The repeal plan would eliminate the ACA’s Medicaid expansion for low-income adults, lead to sharply increased health care costs for millions of moderate-income individual-market consumers – many of whom are vulnerable older adults – and eliminate consumer protections that are crucial for people with pre-existing health conditions. This repeal bill, like the ones before it, jeopardizes health coverage for millions of individuals and families across Illinois.

To fuel the fire, this attack on the ACA comes on the heels of the Federal Administration’s release of a final rule that allows the expanded sale of “association health plans.” The rule allows employers and associations to skirt the ACA rules and sell junk health insurance plans that don’t meet the consumer protections of the ACA. This will make coverage for people with pre-existing conditions unaffordable while further destabilizing the ACA marketplaces by segregating people who are sick or have pre-existing conditions into separate costly health care markets.

Protect Our Care Illinois strongly urges Congress to reject this latest proposal and any future efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act. As we saw last year, the American public has overwhelmingly rejected every single disastrous health care repeal proposal, and this one is no different. The repeal plan does not nothing to improve the ACA and instead resurrects unpopular ideas that will cause millions of Americans to lose health insurance coverage. Instead, policymakers should work on a bipartisan basis to improve the ACA and make health care better for all.