ACP Applauds Senate for Rejecting Health Care Legislation that Would Harm Patients

Internists Say Congress Should Look to Make Improvements to ACA

Statement attributable to:
Jack Ende, MD, MACP
President, American College of Physicians

Washington, DC (July 28, 2017)—The American College of Physicians (ACP) applauds the Senate for voting to reject the “skinny” Affordable Care Act (ACA) repeal legislation that would have greatly harmed our patients. This legislation, as with the previous versions that were considered by both houses of Congress this year, would have put tens of millions of Americans at risk of losing health insurance coverage, and all Americans at risk of losing critical patient protections. 

No version of legislation brought up this year would have achieved the types of reforms that Americans truly need:  lower premiums and deductibles, with increased access to care. We need improvements to our health care system that protect the most vulnerable among us—the sick, the poor, the elderly. And we need improvements that stabilize the health insurance market places. 

We now urge the House and the Senate to move forward in a bipartisan manner, working through “regular order,” to make improvements to the ACA. We ask Congress to consider the types of improvements that ACP outlined earlier this year in our Prescription for a Forward-Looking Agenda to Improve American Health Care. We welcome the opportunity to work together to improve and build on current law in a way that would make health care better and more affordable for our patients.

***

About the American College of Physicians

The American College of Physicians is the largest medical specialty organization in the United States with members in more than 145 countries worldwide. ACP membership includes 152,000 internal medicine physicians (internists), related subspecialists, and medical students. Internal medicine physicians are specialists who apply scientific knowledge and clinical expertise to the diagnosis, treatment, and compassionate care of adults across the spectrum from health to complex illness. Follow ACP on Twitter and Facebook.