Key Vote Alert “NO” on H.R. 1425, The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Enhancement Act

Club for Growth opposes the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Enhancement Act. The legislation will be considered soon in the United States House of Representatives. The result of the vote will be included in the Club for Growth Foundation’s 2020 Congressional Scorecard.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Enhancement Act doubles down on the failures of Obamacare and limits choice and competition in the health care marketplace for consumers. It raids Medicare by nearly $500 billion in order to finance the enhancement by fixing prices in prescription medications. But rather than using the money from this price-fixing socialist scheme to improve Medicare’s solvency, the money is redirected into Obamacare so that healthy, able-bodied people can remain on Medicaid, while forcing states to keep ineligible Medicaid recipients on its Medicaid rolls. At a time when American innovation is needed, price-fixing would cause many drug-manufactures to produce less, and reduce choice for consumers. Moreover, the bill provides for a $10 billion annual permanent bailout of health insurers.

The solution to America’s health care woes does not lie within an enhancement of government’s role. Instead, Congress should take steps to remove government from the health care decisions that should be between a doctor and patient. If Congress does anything, it should take action to expand choice and competition by taking steps to codify important action taken by the current administration that makes available Short-Term Limited Duration plans (STLDs), Association Health Plans (AHPs), and health care reimbursement accounts (HRAs). But this legislation actually repeals STLDs.

Across America, people have been saddled with soaring premiums and have been victimized by low-quality health care due to lack of competition. Make no mistake, liberals in Congress desperately seek to enact a single-payer health care system as part of their Green New Deal. Their goal is control of individuals’ health care decisions. And legislation like this that only furthers that goal should be soundly rejected by anyone that cares about preserving quality and competition in health care.

Club for Growth Foundation’s Congressional Scorecard for the 116th Congress provides a comprehensive rating of how well or how poorly each member of Congress supports pro-growth, free-market policies and will be distributed to the public.