Issue Position: Health Care in America

Issue Position

The Affordable Care Act brought dramatic change to the health care industry. The ACA was a huge step forward in addressing systemic, entrenched problems with American health care. It removed insurers' ability to discriminate against pre-existing conditions and brought people with expensive, complex medical needs into larger pools. These are only two of the major changes that were necessary. While we seek to protect Americans who require health care, we also recognize that health care providers must be paid. Healthcare providers and insurers suggest their profits are decreasing, sometimes drastically. The legislature must adhere to the terms agreed upon to reimburse insurers for taking on risks that were difficult to assess at the outset of the ACA. We know costs must be contained and additional changes are necessary to fix health care services in our country.

We have widespread recognition that the ACA should be repaired, not repealed and not replaced. The majority view is that the ACA is valuable, and legislators should not harm more than 20 million individuals that have benefitted from the ACA.

The incumbent and the new Republican Administration have chosen to remove coverage while providing no protection against rapidly increase costs. The Republican incumbent affirmatively voted against more than 20 million individuals. He chose to vote against hundreds of thousands of Republicans and Democrats in Illinois' Sixth District. He chose to leap quickly without making any reasoned decisions or negotiating improvements to the ACA. He chose to vote blindly with his party rather than await an informed review of legislation. Knowing the dire importance of healthcare to every constituent, he made a choice that reflects his values, not the values of the Sixth Congressional District.

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