PRESS RELEASE: WV Citizen Action Group Celebrates 13th Anniversary of Affordable Care Act, Calls for Universal Affordable Coverage to Finish the Job

For Immediate Release: March 23, 2023

Contact: Gary Zuckett, 304-437-3701, garyz@wvcag.org

 

WV Citizen Action Group Celebrates 13th Anniversary of Affordable Care Act, 
Calls for Universal Affordable Coverage to Finish the Job

Charleston, WV – On the 13th anniversary of the Affordable Care Act becoming law, WV Citizen Action released the following statement celebrating record enrollment and lowered costs gained through the Inflation Reduction Act, and calling on Congress to finish the job to everyone has access to affordable coverage:

“After 13 years of non-stop attacks and sabotage from opponents, the Affordable Care Act has not only survived but thrived, hitting record enrollment in 2023 by providing quality, affordable coverage to over 28,325 West Virginians and improving coverage for over 100 million Americans nationwide. Both the ACA and Medicaid were invaluable tools throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, ensuring individuals could get affordable coverage when they needed it most. But it shouldn’t take an emergency to make healthcare affordable and accessible to millions more people: Congress has the power to make permanent the increased affordability provisions and Medicaid improvements that have brought the number of uninsured people to record lows over the last year. 

We support President Biden’s recently announced budget blueprint to do just that by making enhanced premium tax credits permanent in the ACA and increasing investment in Medicaid to address the current mental health and substance abuse crisis, provide home based and community care options to aging people and people with disabilities, and extending provisions to lower drug prices beyond Medicare so that people of all ages can get affordable prescription drugs. Reining in the health industry’s price-gouging and raising taxes on billionaires and tax-dodging corporations is a common sense solution to lowering costs while investing in services. 

It’s a better approach than Republican proposals to cut spending on Medicaid, Medicare and the ACA, while at the same time proposing to extend the Trump tax cuts for the wealthy and to repeal the benefits under the Inflation Reduction Act.  Through the Inflation Reduction Act, the President has already lowered out-of-pocket costs and prescription drug prices in Medicare by taking on price-gouging drug corporations and insulin manufacturers, saving tens of thousands of West Virginians an average of $1,530 per year on their insurance premiums and expanding coverage to about 5,000 who would otherwise be uninsured. Senator Manchin was the only WV official in DC to vote for the Inflation Reduction Act.

It’s time to finish the job of ensuring that everyone in America has access to quality, affordable health care by taxing corporations that make billions in profits so we can lower healthcare costs for people of all ages, fund mental health care, increase access to treatments for substance use disorders, support rural hospitals and expand home health care while reducing the deficit at the same time. West Virginia Citizen Action calls on both our US Senators & Representatives to support the President’s plan to expand health care coverage and lower costs by finally making corporations and the very wealthy pay their fair share in taxes.”

 

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