“The passage of the Affordable Care Act was a major milestone in fixing our broken health care system, ensuring that those with pre-existing conditions can access care, extending health insurance to millions of Americans, and helping to slow the growth of health care costs to their lowest rates in decades. But it’s clear we still have much more work to do to continue to improve our healthcare delivery system to make sure health care is affordable and high quality for all Americans.”

– Rep. Adam Schiff

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Improving Our Health Care Infrastructure

Rep. Adam Schiff is a strong advocate for sensible health care reform and believes that access to affordable, quality, stable health care is the key to a productive work force, small business innovation, and the economic, as well as health security of American families. He is committed to full implementation of the Affordable Care Act, which has already expanded and improved access to health care for millions of Americans, marking a monumental step forward in fixing our country’s broken and costly health care system. Schiff also has a strong voting record in opposition to measures that would roll back the law’s protections for people with pre-existing health conditions, young adults, and women. Health care reform is intrinsically linked to the continuing economic recovery. The Affordable Care Act responds to the challenges of the current economic climate in a fiscally responsible manner, reducing the deficit by over $1.3 trillion over the next two decades, and ensuring the economic security of our children.

The positive impact of the ACA is nowhere more evident than in the bellwether state of California, where 1.4 million people have already benefited from a variety of private health plans obtained through Covered California, our state-based health insurance exchange. The containment and stabilization of rising health insurance costs has already taken effect in California, where premium rates are only set to rise about 4.2 percent on average in 2015 – a remarkable decline from double-digit rate increases in past years. Also as a result of the ACA, California’s uninsured rate was cut in half to 11 percent and an astounding 1.1 million people were able to successfully enroll into Medi-Cal through the state exchange.

Protecting Medicare and Medicaid

Rep. Adam Schiff is a strong proponent of important safety net programs that have dependably served our nation’s most vulnerable populations of seniors, people with complex health care needs, and low-income families for decades. Schiff was an early advocate for the expansion of Medi-Cal in the state of California to ensure that low-income children and families, pregnant women, and people with disabilities have access to free or low-cost quality health care. He also opposes transforming the Medicare program into a voucher-based system, which would increase health care costs for a majority of seniors in the traditional Medicare program and all seniors in Medicare Advantage.

And in order to maintain a robust healthcare workforce to care for a growing Medicare population, Schiff is a strong supporter of permanent Medicare reimbursement reform for physicians. Each year, Congress has had to override cuts to physician reimbursements which were mandated by the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 under a formula called the Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR). Schiff believes that this flawed formula should be repealed and replaced with a permanent solution which rewards physicians based on the quality of care they provide to Medicare beneficiaries.

Investing in Medical Research, Public, and Global Health

As a senior member of the House Committee on Appropriations, Rep. Adam Schiff has consistently advocated for increased funding for the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which assists thousands of cutting edge medical research projects across the nation that make a difference in the lives of millions of Americans. Literally everyone in America has a friend or family member whose life has been improved by medical advances catalyzed the by NIH. Schiff also believes that consistent and long-term funding for the NIH is critical to ensuring that America remains competitive in the world of scientific progress.

Schiff also supports robust funding for HIV/AIDS, viral hepatitis, STD, and diabetes prevention programs at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), which is tasked with overseeing the federal response to control and prevent the spread of diseases. Schiff also supports the efforts of the health community to fight for global vaccines and immunization through the US Agency for International Development (USAID), UNICEF, and the Gavi Alliance. While we have made progress in our efforts to curb the prevalence of many debilitating diseases, there is still work to be done to completely eradicate them so they no longer pose a threat to the health of children worldwide.

Maintaining a Strong Health Care Workforce

California’s 28th District is home to a number of community health centers and world-renowned hospitals, including Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and the Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles. For this reason, Rep. Adam Schiff has been a strong proponent for boosting the Community Health Center program, which helps to ensure that health centers can continue to remain responsive to community needs by providing high quality primary and preventive care. Schiff also supports the federally-funded Graduate Medical Education (GME) program, which is critical in attracting and preparing the best and brightest medical students for specialization in high-need fields such as primary care and children’s health care. And to further address the predicted shortage of primary care physicians in the near future, Schiff is in favor of raising the current cap on the number of Medicare-supported GME slots across the country to encourage 15,000 new physicians to join the health care workforce.

Protecting a Woman’s Right to Choose

As a member of the Congressional Pro-Choice Caucus, Rep. Adam Schiff is a long-time supporter of a woman's right to choose from a full range of reproductive options and believes such choices should rest with the woman, her physicians, and the family or friends she chooses to consult. Schiff has a strong voting record in opposition to a variety of anti-choice bills that restrict a woman’s right to choose and supports numerous initiatives to protect women at reproductive clinics and to provide increased funding for international and domestic family planning programs. Schiff is also a cosponsor of the Women's Health Protection Act and the Protect Women from Corporate Interference Act.