ICYMI: Senator Hassan on MSNBC: New Republican Plan “Would Cause Premiums to Skyrocket,” We Need Bipartisanship

Click here for video of Senator Hassan’s interview.

WASHINGTON  - Today, Senator Maggie Hassan joined Andrea Mitchell on MSNBC to discuss the need to work in a bipartisan manner to improve and build on the Affordable Care Act to bring down costs. Earlier today, Senator Hassan spoke on the Senate floor in support of Senator Jeanne Shaheen’s  Marketplace Certainty Act, a bill that Senator Hassan helped introduced to lower health care premiums for middle class Americans and stabilize the individual market.

Key highlights:

• “The plan that Senator McConnell has been putting forward since last night – this repeal bill from 2015 – would cause premiums to skyrocket, it would cause about 32 million Americans to lose their health insurance coverage and it would eliminate Medicaid expansion which has been so critical in my state and many others in addressing the heroin, opioid, and fentanyl crisis. So it’s an irresponsible plan.”

• “We have ideas in the Democratic caucus about how to move forward, and bring healthcare costs down and stabilize the market. Among other things, we have to bring prescription drug prices down, and so we should be allowing the importation of safe and affordable prescription drugs. We should allow Medicare to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies for prices. Those are some of the ideas we have that would really help us bring down costs; we have other ones – we were just on the floor talking about how we could stabilize the insurance market and further bring costs down, too. That’s where our attention should be. And I am hopeful that this means we will return to regular order.”

• “My husband and I are incredibly aware of both the strengths and the flaws of our healthcare system. As times, Ben has had as many as nine or ten doctors, and up to 20 medications. So we know that there are improvements we need to make; we certainly have to do more to bring the cost of healthcare down. But in order for us to be productive as a country, people have to be able to be healthy.”

• “We’ve heard story after story, as I just did in New Hampshire on Friday, from people who got coverage through Medicaid expansion – whether it was for substance abuse, or some other kind of healthcare need – and are now working, some of them working for a private entity and getting private insurance now. So there is really a possibility to move forward. It starts with the basic principle that every American counts, every American deserves access to affordable, quality healthcare, and when they do, we all get healthy and thrive together.”

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