Gov. Edwards Issues Statement on the Affordable Care Act and Pre-Existing Conditions

BATON ROUGE, Louisiana, March 26 -- Gov. John Bel Edwards, D-Louisiana, issued the following statement on Affordable Care Act and critical provisions that protect people with pre-existing conditions:

"We can all agree that the Affordable Care Act has flaws that we should be working to address, but completely eliminating the program - especially the provisions that protect people with pre-existing conditions, allow children to stay on their parents' health plans, and the Medicaid expansion - is not the answer. We can fix what's broken with the ACA without jeopardizing people's health care.

"In Louisiana, more than 500,000 working people have access to lifesaving health care. Louisiana's Attorney General has already targeted the almost 850,000 individuals with pre-existing conditions in this state to deprive them of coverage. We can't let that happen.

"As I travel the state, I run into people every day who tell me that they were able to go back to work or school because they got the health care they have needed. In addition, the Medicaid expansion has saved hundreds of millions of dollars for Louisiana because we chose to bring our federal tax dollars home. This doesn't have to be another partisan battle from Washington.

"It is critically important for all sides to come together because we are literally talking about life or death for some people. That's why I will support legislation this session to act to protect these provisions."