In the News

U.S. Rep. Richard Neal took issue Tuesday with Trump administration policies that he argued will continue to grow health insurance premiums while offering Americans inadequate coverage.

Neal, the top Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee, criticized the U.S. Department of Labor for finalizing a rule to expand the availability of association health plans, which let small businesses and self-employed workers collectively buy health insurance as if they were a single large employer. 

The congressman cast the rule as "a continuation of Republicans' sabotage of our nation's health care system," arguing that it will force Americans to pay more for worse insurance. 

Critics have argued that association health plans offer fewer protections than those available through the Affordable Care Act and could weaken the controversial health care law.

"These garbage association health plans provide inadequate coverage, threatening the health and economic security of America's families," Neal said in a statement. "As people buy into these shoddy plans, insurance costs rise across the board for everyone else."

The Springfield Democrat, who initially spoke out against Trump's executive order allowing association health plans in October, accused the president and congressional Republicans of "deliberately and aggressively causing Americans to pay higher costs for their health coverage."

Neal noted that the DOL rule comes as the Department of Justice refuses to defend key ACA provisions, and just six months after Trump signed a GOP-backed tax bill into law that eliminated the Obamacare penalty for those who fail to obtain health care coverage -- something which he argued has caused insurance premiums to "skyrocket across the nation."

Families, he argued, can't afford the "repercussions" of such efforts to undermine their access to care.

Neal further pointed to a new analysis from the left-leaning Center for American Progress Action Fund Tuesday that estimates the average ACA annual benchmark plan premiums for a family of four could rise by nearly $2,000 in 2019 as a result of the GOP tax law's repeal of the individual mandate. 

The analysis suggested that the spike in health care premiums costs would more than offset the average tax cut benefit to the bottom 80 percent of families in 2019. 

The congressman said the analysis appears to confirm Democrats' argument that the GOP tax law will hurt middle class Americans more than it will help them. 

"Our Republican colleagues ... cared more about giving more to the well off through massive tax cuts than caring about insuring American families and allowing them to have affordable health insurance," he said in a conference call.

Neal added that while Republican policies "force Americans to pay more for less," Democrats are fighting to expand and fight for access to affordable and quality health care. 

Labor officials announced Tuesday that the department's new rule will expand access to "affordable health coverage options for America's small businesses and their employees through association health plans.

The administration argued that the policy, which stems from Trump's "Promoting Health Care Choices and Competition Across the United States" executive order, will help "strengthen negotiating power with providers from larger risk pools and greater economies of scale."

DOL noted that, despite critics' concerns, the rule "includes important safeguards" and consumer protections.