Rep. Karen Bass and Assemblywoman Holly Mitchell Tout Benefits To Californians as the 3rd Anniversary of Healthcare Reform Nears

Washington, D.C.  – Today, Congresswoman and former Assembly Speaker Karen Bass (D-Calif.) and California Assemblywoman Holly Mitchell (D-Calif.) held a press conference call highlighting the success of the Affordable Care Act or “Obamacare” for California residents and discuss next steps in the law’s implementation as the 3rd Anniversary of President Obama’s signing of this historic law nears this week.  
 
“As we are celebrating the third anniversary of the Affordable Care Act, unfortunately, I’m in a situation where my Republican colleagues are trying to repeal health care reform again--for the 36th time,” Congresswoman Bass said.  “Paul Ryan’s budget repeals all of the Obamacare reforms that benefit Californians but hypocritically using the savings from the legislation to balance the budget under the misguided Republican budget.  I’m going to fight to make sure Paul Ryan and Republicans don’t have their way in repealing these key reforms. ”
 
Assemblywoman Holly Mitchell explained, “California was the first state in the nation to pass legislation to help create our exchange. For the first time ever, Californians will have really transparent comparison shopping when they are choosing healthcare and access to critical information about what kind of plans they would like to buy into. The new health exchange helps us all and helps out the entire market by requiring insurance companies to balance out their rate setting requirements.  We think that the President is right in his assertion that healthcare costs will go down once exchanges are in place and that’s a great thing for Californians.” 

Repeal of the Affordable Care Act would put these benefits in jeopardy for Californians, impacting the more than 2 million residents who have received free preventive healthcare services and undermining nearly $400 million in savings  that seniors have received on their prescription drugs.