WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Rep. Terri Sewell (AL-07) voted today in favor of House Resolution 271, Condemning the Trump Administration’s Legal Campaign to Take Away Americans’ Health Care.

“Not only are the Trump Administration’s efforts to gut the ACA reckless and irresponsible, they are a direct assault on Americans with pre-existing conditions,” said Sewell, a member of the House Ways & Means Subcommittee on Health. “I won’t stand idly by and allow this Administration to take us back to a time when health insurers outright rejected or offered severely limited coverage to the nearly one million Alabamians under 65 with pre-existing conditions. Alabamians deserve better.”

“I was proud to join my colleagues last week in introducing legislation to reverse the administration’s health care sabotage, strengthen protections for Americans with pre-existing conditions and lower health insurance premiums by improving and expanding affordability assistance,” Sewell continued. “Instead of building additional barriers to health care coverage for those in need, the Administration – and the State of Alabama – should change course and work to increase consumer protections and continue to prevent insurance companies from discriminating against those with pre-existing conditions.”

The Trump Administration announced last week its decision not to defend the Affordable Care Act in a Texas-led lawsuit, including popular provisions safeguarding health care coverage for Americans with pre-existing conditions and allowing children to stay on their parent’s health insurance plans until age 26. If successful, the lawsuit – which the State of Alabama supports – would dismantle the Affordable Care Act and take the guarantee of health care coverage away from more than 130 million Americans and nearly one million Alabamians under 65 with pre-existing conditions.

H. Res. 271 resolves that it is the sense of the House of Representatives that:    

• The actions taken by the Trump Administration seeking the invalidation of the ACA’s protections for people with pre-existing conditions, and later the invalidation of the entire ACA, are an unacceptable assault on the health care of the American people; and
• The Department of Justice should:
  • Protect individuals with pre-existing conditions, seniors struggling with high prescription drug costs, and the millions of people in the United States who newly gained health insurance coverage since 2014; and
  • Cease any and all efforts to destroy Americans’ access to affordable health care; and reverse its position in Texas v. United States.

Last week, just one day after the Trump Administration announced its efforts to rip health coverage away from millions of Americans and eliminate the ACA’s protections and benefits, Sewell and other House Democrats introduced the Protecting Pre-Existing Conditions & Making Health Care More Affordable Act of 2019 to strengthen protections for Americans with pre-existing conditions and lower health insurance premiums by strengthening and expanding affordability assistance.

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