{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://degette.house.gov/media-center/in-the-news/the-podium-the-white-house-is-bent-on-sabotaging-the-affordable-care-act", "THE PODIUM: The White House is Bent on Sabotaging the Affordable Care Act", "2017-11-09", "2017", "2017-11", "Democrat", "House", "CO", "Diana DeGette", "D000197", "degette.house.gov", null, null, "legacy", "The Trump administration is bad for your health.\nThis administration tried to dismantle the Affordable Care Act, which would deprive millions of Americans of their coverage, and it appears they are still trying.\nIn the midst of the open enrollment season for health insurance under the ACA, the administration is taking steps through executive action to deprive people of insurance.\nPresident Trump is trying to discourage healthy people from entering the insurance market by all but ending advertising to draw attention to open enrollment, reducing funding for \u201cnavigators\u201d who in the past have helped members of the public answer questions about their coverage options, and allowing previously prohibited, cheap insurance plans that don\u2019t cover many common treatments.\u00a0 He has also shortened the national open enrollment period; though in Colorado, it extends to January 12, the deadline in most other states is December 15.\nAnd now his White House is reportedly reviewing a plan to waive the ACA requirement that all people obtain health insurance or face a fine, which is known as the Individual Mandate.\u00a0 At its most basic, this requirement ensures that healthy people get coverage as well as the sick, so that insurance companies won\u2019t go broke.\u00a0 This requirement is therefore crucial to keeping insurance markets and premiums stable. Without this mandate, many more health plans would opt out of the exchanges and the rates for the others would skyrocket.\nThe plan would be carried out through executive order unless the president persuades congressional Republicans to enact this \u201creform\u201d in the tax package now under consideration in the House of Representatives, effectively gutting the ACA.\nAll of these steps serve to make the president\u2019s misleading claims that the ACA is \u201cimploding\u201d a self-fulfilling prophecy.\nPolls show most Americans think Democrats and Republicans should work together to mend the Affordable Care Act, not end it. That means working on bipartisan solutions to the problems the American people want us to solve.\nDemocrats want to work with Republicans on a number of shared goals:\n Reducing premiums.\n\tLowering deductibles and other out-of-pocket costs.\n\tCreating conditions that favor competition and choice among health plans.\n\tMaking plans easier for consumers to understand and compare.\n\tBringing down prescription drug prices.\n And more.\nHere and there on Capitol Hill there is a willingness among some members of Congress on both sides of the aisle to try to work together on policy solutions where we have shared concerns about our health system.\nFor example, most everyone agrees that this country needs better coverage at a lower cost.\u00a0 But to do that takes a solid understanding of how insurance markets work, by pooling risk and incentivizing healthy people to take part.\u00a0 At some time or another, everyone uses health care.\u00a0 You can\u2019t get something for nothing.\u00a0 Insurance products simply don\u2019t come in\u00a0a la carte\u00a0form.\nAll of these issues are highly technical. \u00a0Addressing them will require consulting regularly with experts who can guide us to policies that help create more stability in the marketplace without eliminating vital consumer protections.\nThe product will be much better from the standpoint of politics as well as policy.\u00a0 As my Republican colleagues know full well from earlier this year, many of their constituents strongly objected to steam-rolling through bills to dismantle the ACA that were ill-considered and would have wreaked havoc on our health care system.\nWe didn\u2019t say the ACA was perfect when it became law. \u00a0Nobody\u2019s saying that now. Every modern federal program affecting public well-being, from Social Security to Medicare, has required changes over time. They\u2019ve all been improved through the years by changes to their founding statutes.\nAfter seven years of noisy partisan wrangling, I can confidently say there is a path forward for strengthening America\u2019s health care system.\u00a0 There are reasonable, effective solutions that can secure bipartisan support and help us fulfill the duties that we, as elected officials, have to all Americans.\nOur constituents are demanding it \u2014 that\u2019s why they\u2019ve been so passionate about protecting the ACA.\u00a0 Its approval among Americans is at higher levels now than it ever was.\u00a0 We should seize this moment and do what\u2019s best for them.", 1, "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z", "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://degette.house.gov/media-center/in-the-news/the-podium-the-white-house-is-bent-on-sabotaging-the-affordable-care-act"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.9940268937498331, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}