At Mercy Hospital, Sen. King Calls for Bipartisan Improvements to Affordable Care Act

PORTLAND, Maine, July 21 -- The office of Sen. Angus S. King Jr., I-Maine, issued the following news release:

U.S. Senator Angus King (I-Maine) today joined with health care professionals, providers, and advocates at the Fore River Campus of Mercy Hospital in Portland to discuss a path forward for comprehensive, bipartisan health care policies that will make health care more affordable and more accessible for people in Maine.

"We just had a longer hearing on health care in Portland, Maine than has happened this year in the United States Senate on a plan to affect one sixth of the U.S. economy and tens of millions of people," Senator King said. "Listening to the health care professionals at Mercy today only underscored the not-so-radical idea that we need bipartisan legislation and we should have hearings and take into consideration the real-world experiences of people on the front lines. I don't know one person in the Senate who will tell you that the ACA is perfect, but I do know there are a lot of us who want to get the fixes right."

The meeting comes in the wake of repeated failures to pass partisan health care bills and Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's decision to pursue a vote on legislation next week that would repeal the Affordable Care Act. Senator King has consistently called for Congress to work together in a bipartisan manner to make meaningful improvements to the Affordable Care Act before rushing to repeal it.

Senator King has spoken out against the American Health Care Act, which is the House-passed health care bill, and the Senate health care bill, the so-called Better Care Reconciliation Act. Specifically, he has voiced opposition to the bill's age tax, which makes insurance more expensive for older Americans, and denounced the bill's impact on Maine's fight against the opioid epidemic, its impact on people with disabilities, and how it will harm rural hospitals and rural economies across the state.