In Light of Legislative Failure of Repeal Effort, Mass. Lawmakers Call on Price to Avoid Partisanship and Fully Implement Health Care Law

WASHINGTON, April 3 -- Rep. Seth Moulton, D-Mass., issued the following news release:

With repeal of the Affordable Care Act back on its agenda according to Congressional Republicans, today Seth Moulton (D-MA) and the entire Massachusetts delegation sent a letter to Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Tom Price calling on him not to undermine the health care law in light of Massachusetts's unique success implementing near universal health coverage. In the letter, the lawmakers express serious concerns that, in the wake of the recent legislative failure of the replacement to the health care law, Secretary Price, utilizing his authority as head of the agency, will take steps to facilitate the demise of the individual insurance market, minimize or remove consumer protections, and permit detrimental changes to the Medicaid program.

"As a duty of your office, you must ensure the ACA is fully implemented and executed as intended under the law," writes the delegation in the letter to Secretary Price. "We hope that efforts to repeal the ACA are finally a relic of the past, and, as has been the case for the past seven years, we stand ready to work with you on bipartisan efforts to improve the health care system for millions of families across the country."

A copy of the delegation letter to HHS can be found HERE: https://www.markey.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/2017-04-03-Price-letter-HHS.pdf.

Already, in an effort to undermine the health care law, the Trump administration withdrew planned advertising for the Affordable Care Act's 2017 open enrollment period, instated further restrictions on special enrollment periods, and cut the open enrollment period for the individual market in half.

In the letter, the lawmakers point to Massachusetts's bipartisan success passing incremental fixes to its 2006 health care coverage law, as well as implementing additional changes to take advantage of the new tools provided by the Affordable Care Act when it was signed into law in 2010. As a result of these reform efforts, more than 97 percent of Massachusetts residents have health insurance.