New bill undermines essential health benefits, weakens protections for patients with pre-existing conditions
Prevent Blindness opposes any attempts to remove the Affordable Care Act (ACA)’s essential health benefits protection, particularly children’s vision benefits. Additionally, we are deeply concerned that weakened protections for individuals with pre-existing conditions will force patients to forgo vision and eye health care, not as a matter of having the ability to make empowered patient choices, but as a result of significantly increased out-of-pocket costs on chronic illness, comorbid disease, or catastrophic care.
The proposals in the Graham-Cassidy legislation to convert current federal spending on ACA marketplace assistance and Medicaid expansion exponentially shifts costs to states; thus, limiting states’ abilities to provide benefits and services to certain vulnerable populations, especially adults with chronic disease and aging Americans.