Health Care Reform

Congressman Doyle joined a majority of Members of the House of Representatives in voting to approve a landmark health care reform bill on March 21. 

The House and Senate both approved legislation (the Reconciliation Act of 2010) to strengthen the new law on March 25.  Congressman Doyle voted for this legislation as well.

On March 26, 2010, Congressman Doyle released the following statement:

"I believe that this legislation will go a long way toward making quality health insurance more affordable for all Americans – and do it without busting the federal budget.  

"The new laws will end insurance industry practices like discriminating on the basis of pre-existing conditions, dropping coverage when a policy-holder becomes seriously ill, and capping annual and life-time benefits.  That will provide security to middle-class families.  Too many middle-class families are just one layoff or illness away from losing their health insurance coverage.

"The health care reform laws will extend health insurance coverage to 30 million Americans who are currently uninsured and provide tax credits to help millions of Americans pay for health insurance.  

"These reforms will provide stability to middle-class families.  Insurers across the country have been raising premiums by as much as 39 percent.  Families just can’t keep paying rising costs like that.  By ending the insurance company practice of placing annual and life-time limits on benefits – and by capping out-of-pocket expenses for families – the new reform law will dramatically reduce the number of families who end up broke or bankrupt after serious illnesses (more than half of all bankruptcies in this country involve households with high medical bills).  The new law will also make sure that people’s health care dollars go where they’re supposed to – medical care for policy-holders – and not into advertising budgets or executive bonuses.

"The new laws will also close the Medicare prescription drug 'donut hole' and extend the solvency of the Medicare Trust Fund by nearly 10 years.  

"Finally, the new health reform laws will increase competition in the health insurance industry – and bring down health care costs for households and small businesses – by creating a health insurance exchange where insurance companies will have to compete for your premium dollars.  Up until now, insurance companies could raise rates as much as they pleased because there wasn’t enough competition in most health insurance markets across the country.  The new laws make sure that there are more choices for families and small businesses – and more competition to keep prices down.  In addition, small businesses will now be able to offer good health care benefits to their employees because they will be able to combine their purchasing power with other small businesses to get the same lower insurance rates that big corporations have historically negotiated.

"As the new laws take effect in the coming years, they will rapidly become clear that most of the dire predictions that were made about all the horrible things health care reform would do were distortions, exaggerations, misinformation, or outright lies." 

The links below provide information about the new health care reform laws – from brief summaries to the complete text of the legislation and background information on health care costs and what would have happened if Congress hadn’t enacted these comprehensive health care reforms.

Click here for a summary of what the new health care reform law will do

Click here for information on how the new law will affect residents of Pennsylvania’s 14th Congressional District

Click here for information on the impact of the health care reform legislation on the federal budget

Click here for information on the changes that were made to the Senate-passed bill

Click here for other information about the health care reform legislation

Click here for information on why doing nothing would cost us much more