ACP Says Postponed Health Care Vote Confirms Fundamentally Flawed Bill

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

Washington, D.C. (June 27, 2017)—The American College of Physicians (ACP) believes that today’s postponement of the Senate’s vote on the Better Care Reconciliation Act (BCRA) is a confirmation of the inherent flaws in that legislation.  The BCRA does not meet—or come close to meeting—the criteria that ACP established that any reforms to current law should first, do no harm to patients. The BCRA would radically change how Medicaid is financed, reduce premium and cost-sharing subsidies for people who most need them in the individual insurance market, and significantly weaken essential consumer protections for the most vulnerable patients. 

Starting with the flawed policies of the American Health Care Act (AHCA) as passed by the House of Representatives on May 4, 2017, and failing to seek the input of physicians and other interested parties resulted in a bill that would not improve patient care or our health care system.

ACP urges the Senate to ultimately reject the BCRA and start over.  Instead Congress should look for bipartisan solutions to improve current law, such as those proposed in ACP’s 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 148,000 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.