On Eve of Crucial Vote to Save Health Care Tax Credits, Cantwell Rejects Republican Attacks on Affordable Care Act and Calls for Bipartisan Solutions

On Eve of Crucial Vote to Save Health Care Tax Credits, Cantwell Rejects Republican Attacks on Affordable Care Act and Calls for Bipartisan Solutions

"We cannot take millions of people off of the Affordable Care plan and then say you're going to give them $1,000, when we know their out-of-pocket expenses are going to be $7,000."; Cites bipartisan solutions like the Basic Health Program that could reduce costs for consumers and providers

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Today, U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA), ranking member of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation and a senior member of the Senate Finance Committee, rejected Republican attacks on the Affordable Care Act, and urged her colleagues to work together to address health care affordability.

"We're days away from a vote, and yet they're still not coming together to show us how they're going to reduce health care costs," Sen. Cantwell said.

"I know my colleagues, [Senators] Crapo and Cassidy, are trying. My guess is they would like to get a solution here. I thought we should have done it before we opened the government back up, because we had the optimal period of time where people were listening to real solutions. Now, we've kind of divided into our corners. I am very worried that we are not going to get this done, when in reality, we could. We could," she continued.

"I talked to them before. I wanted to work with them in earnest […] But we cannot take millions of people off of the Affordable Care plan and then say you're going to give them $1,000, when we know their out-of-pocket expenses are going to be $7,000."

Sen. Cantwell has been a leading Senate voice in calling for bipartisan action to address health care affordability.

In February, Sen. Cantwell joined U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) in reintroducing the Pharmacy Benefit Manager Transparency Act, which would increase drug price transparency and hold Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs) accountable for unfair and deceptive practices that drive up prescription drug prices. This legislation will reduce prescription costs for consumers and save taxpayers $740 million.

In October, Sen. Cantwell released a case study showing the actual, shocking increase in health premiums for a sample middle-class family purchasing health insurance on the ACA marketplace across all 39 WA counties in real dollars: The average increase across all 39 WA counties is $1,049/month or $12,590/year.

Last month, at a Finance Committee hearing titled "The Rising Cost of Health Care: Considering Meaningful Solutions for all Americans," Sen. Cantwell touted the cost savings potential of the Basic Health Program (BHP), an option through the Affordable Care Act that empowers states to use federal funding to negotiate directly with managed care plans - essentially a state-based public health insurance option for individuals with incomes just above the Medicaid threshold.

In 2010, Cantwell authored the BHP provision that was included in the Affordable Care Act.

Video of Sen. Cantwell's remarks is available HERE, and a transcript is available HERE.