What's At Risk for Georgians: Perdue Health Care Plan Would Eliminate Consumer Protections –Including For Pre-Existing Conditions

ATLANTA, Georgia, Dec. 16 -- The Georgia Democratic Party issued the following news release:

The threat to Georgians' health care is more present than ever as Senator David Perdue remains determined to strip protections for people with pre-existing conditions and rip coverage away from millions.

Perdue and his fellow Washington Republicans' reckless health care agenda includes multiple votes to gut protections and kick millions off health care while raising costs and worsening coverage. And that's in addition to Perdue's recent vote to uphold new rules that could let big insurance companies flood states like Georgia with junk health care plans without protections for those with pre-existing conditions.

But now, Perdue is trying to do through the courts what he couldn't pass through Congress. Perdue "of course" supports a federal lawsuit to completely dismantle the health care law and its critical protections for Georgians with preexisting conditions -- a lawsuit sparked by a provision the GOP slipped into their corporate tax giveaway that passed two years ago this week.

A recent NPR report on the lawsuit breaks down what's at stake for Georgia families:

* There's no doubt that invalidating the ACA in whole or in large part would have a dramatic effect on the U.S. health system -- and not just for those 20 million or so Americans whose coverage directly flows from the law.

* Declaring the law null and void "would upend all of those settled expectations and throw health care markets, and 1/5 of the economy, into chaos," [a bipartisan group of health policy experts] wrote.

* Many of the insurance protections in the ACA also protect those who have insurance through their jobs. These provisions include allowing adult children to stay on their parents' health plans and requiring that insurers cover people who have preexisting health conditions -- at no additional charge to those patients.

* The law also requires that ACA-compliant policies provide preventive care with no out-of-pocket cost, and it bans annual and lifetime cost limits on what insurers will cover.

* The ACA has an entire section devoted to increasing the supply of not just physicians but nurses, therapists, dentists and community health centers. Many of these training programs could founder if the ACA were overturned.

"Senator David Perdue's reckless crusade to gut health care protections for people with pre-existing conditions and rip away coverage would do enormous damage to Georgia families that rely on the health care law and its critical protections," said Alex Floyd, spokesman for the Democratic Party of Georgia. "Senator Perdue and his Republican allies' dangerous lawsuit is a threat to the coverage of millions -- and would plunge the entire health care system into chaos."