Sen. Franken Pushes Measure to Help Working Families in Minnesota and Across the Country Bring Down Their Insurance Costs

November 15, 2017

Contact: Michael Dale-Stein michael@franken.senate.gov 202-224-2916

Sen. Franken Pushes Measure to Help Working Families in Minnesota and Across the Country Bring Down Their Insurance Costs

Senator Introduces Legislation to Help Americans Take Full Advantage of Affordable Care Act Tax Credits

WASHINGTON, D.C. [11/15/17]--Today, U.S. Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) introduced legislation to help working families in Minnesota and across the country bring down their health care costs by unlocking key Affordable Care Act (ACA) tax credits.

Under the ACA, large employers must offer comprehensive health coverage to their employees. But for a number of these employees and their families, the out-of-pocket costs for their share of the premium for family coverage remains too high. Sen. Franken's measure, the Family Coverage Act, would clarify ACA rules so that workers whose employers offer them health coverage that is not affordable to their family can access health care tax credits for their dependents.

You can read a summary of the Family Coverage Act at: http://franken.senate.gov/files/docs/171115FamilyCoverageAct.pdf.

"When it comes to improving access to affordable, high-quality health care, we've made great strides under the Affordable Care Act--but there are still things that we need to be doing to improve the law and bring down insurance costs," said Sen. Franken, a member of the Senate Health Committee. "My legislation would help working families in Minnesota and across the country gain access to cost-saving tax credits that will make their health care more affordable. I've always believed that, when it comes to the Affordable Care Act, we need to build on its successes while fixing what needs fixing in the law. This is a step to do just that."

Sen. Franken's bill is cosponsored by Sens. Michael Bennet (D-CO), Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND), Chris Coons (D-DE), Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Debbie Stabenow (D-MI.), Tom Udall (D-NM), Cory Booker (D-NJ), Bob Casey (D-PA), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Angus King (I-VT), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Martin Heinrich (D-NM), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Tim Kaine (D-VA), and Bernie Sanders (I-VT).

In interpreting the ACA, the federal government made the determination that health insurance coverage is "affordable" if the employee's share of premiums for individual coverage, rather than family coverage, is less than 9.5 percent of family income. If an employee has an offer of "affordable" health insurance coverage, the employee and his or her family are barred from receiving premium tax credits. Sen. Franken's bill would fix this by allowing an employee's family access to premium tax credits if the cost of family coverage offered by an employer is greater than 9.5 percent of household income.