McCaskill Pushes to Prevent Expansion of Short-Term ‘Junk’ Health Insurance Plans that Can Exclude Preexisting Conditions
Senator joins opposition to short-term ‘junk’ plans that threaten access to quality, affordable care for Missourians, especially those with preexisting conditions
WASHINGTON – Continuing her work to protect the more than one million Missourians with preexisting conditions, U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill joined with Senate colleagues in pushing a measure that would repeal a recent Administration rule that expands previously limited short-term “junk” health insurance plans from 3 to 12 months.
“Instead of working together to fix the problems in the commonsense, bipartisan way I’ve been working toward for years, this is another example of a partisan effort to undermine protections and raise costs for Missouri seniors and those with preexisting conditions,” McCaskill said. “Missourians have been loud and clear that they’re fed up with Republican efforts to sabotage and take away their healthcare or jack up costs just because they’ve had the nerve to be sick before—and I won’t stand for it.”
The Administration’s short-term plans rule expands the three month limited-duration insurance plans intended to fill temporary gaps in coverage to 12 month plans or beyond, creating a permanent market for these bare-bones plans that can exclude basic health benefits including hospitalization, prescription drugs, maternity care, substance abuse treatment, and allow insurance companies to skirt the requirement that they cover preexisting conditions. An overwhelming majority of healthcare groups and patient and consumer advocates opposed this expansion, citing the grave harm it could do to sick patients.
Maintaining protections for people with preexisting conditions has been a top priority for McCaskill in the Senate. At a recent Senate hearing focused on problems in the healthcare system, McCaskill called out continued attempts by the Trump Administration, Republican congressional leadership, and Republican Attorneys General to roll back protections for people with preexisting conditions and raise health insurance costs for millions of Missourians. Continuing those efforts, McCaskill led a group of colleagues last month in announcing a proposal to defend the constitutionality of preexisting condition protections against the Republican lawsuit.
At a Senate hearing in June, McCaskill called out Republican efforts to undermine protections on preexisting conditions and raise health insurance costs for millions of Missourians. At the hearing, McCaskill entered into the record a 2010 document that outlined more than 400 preexisting conditions that health insurance companies used to deny coverage to individuals before rules were put in place protecting individuals with preexisting conditions.
McCaskill has also fought against rising healthcare and prescription drug costs since joining the Senate. Earlier this month, she released an investigative report that showed that drug prices directly negotiated by the government could save the Medicare Part D program $2.8 billion in a single year on the 20 most commonly prescribed brand-name drugs alone. She also introduced two bipartisan bills in March to prohibit pharmaceutical “gag clauses,” which led patients to overpay for their medications. One of those bills cleared a key committee hurdle last month.
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