The House of Representatives has passed the revised version of the American Health Care Act. MedPage Today reports:
Rep. Phil Roe, MD (R-Tenn.), an ob.gyn., said he was voting for the bill because the ACA cannot be fixed. “The whole [ACA] plan is so complicated it’s impossible,” he told MedPage Today in a phone interview. “There are people out there who got helped by [the ACA], no question, but they’ll get helped by this bill also.”
More than half of those who have coverage through the ACA “have out-of-pocket costs and copays so high that they don’t go for healthcare,” he said. “If you have a health insurance card but you can’t use it, it’s not of much value to you. So we have to try to get the costs down.”
Medical groups panned the House’s action. “The bill passed by the House today will result in millions of Americans losing access to quality, affordable health insurance and those with pre-existing health conditions face the possibility of going back to the time when insurers could charge them premiums that made access to coverage out of the question,” Andrew Gurman, MD, president of the American Medical Association (AMA), said in a statement. “The AMA urges the Senate and the Administration to work with physician, patient, hospital and other provider groups to craft bipartisan solutions so all American families can access affordable and meaningful coverage.”
“The American College of Physicians (ACP) is extremely disappointed” in the bill’s passage in the House, ACP president Jack Ende, MD, said in a statement. “The House action is by no means the end of the story, however. ACP will continue to do all that it can to ensure continued coverage and access for the millions of patients who have benefited from the Affordable Care Act.”
Read more at www.medpagetoday.com
