Horsford Opening Statement at Health Subcommittee Field Hearing on Modernized Health Care in Practice
(As prepared for delivery)
Chair Buchanan, thank you for welcoming us all to your beautiful home, the 16th Congressional District of Florida.
I wanted to be here today because I do not believe Republicans and Democrats fundamentally disagree with the core message of “Make America Healthy.”
In fact, Congressional Democrats – and in particular those who have had the privilege of sitting on the House Ways and Means Committee – have long championed this very goal.
A little over sixteen years ago, we drafted, debated, and passed the most significant expansion of health care coverage in our nation’s history: the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
The ACA opened the doors of our health system to young adults, the working poor, small, independent business owners, and people with preexisting conditions. Moreover, it ensured that preventive care was within reach – care that has saved countless lives and made millions healthier over the years.
But since the beginning of the year the promise of accessible, affordable health care is slipping out of reach for far too many Americans.
Take Ms. Priscilla Brown, a 48‑year‑old truck dispatcher from Orlando living with Type 2 Diabetes. Like millions of others, she is enrolled in the ACA marketplace and relies on daily insulin to stay healthy.
Yet rising healthcare costs have pushed her into a situation no one in the wealthiest nation in the world should face. Some days she takes only half – or even a third – of her prescribed dose in order to “stretch it out.” Other days she skips it entirely. Not because she wants to, but because she has to in order to afford the ever-increasing cost of basic living necessities while balancing her new monthly premium, which became a lot more expensive at the beginning of the year as the Advanced Premium Tax Credit expired.
Ms. Brown’s story is heartbreaking, but it is not unique.
New data from the Kaiser Family Foundation shows that roughly eight in ten Americans who reenrolled in the ACA marketplace this year are facing higher health care costs. And for about half of them, those increases are substantial.
An estimated 1.5 million Floridians are projected to lose their health coverage because of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act – on top of the preexisting 14.8 percent of Floridians who are uninsured.
I look forward to today’s discussion and to working with my colleagues to ensure that healthy living is not a privilege for the few, but a reality for all.
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