Senator Hassan Hears from Granite Staters about What Protections for Pre-Existing Conditions Mean to Them, Highlights Importance of Safeguarding Such Protections and Lowering Skyrocketing Cost of Prescription Drugs

PORTSMOUTH – In case you missed it, Senator Maggie Hassan met with Granite Staters last week to hear from them about what protections for pre-existing conditions mean to them personally. As the Trump Administration continues to undermine the country’s health care system and threaten to strip coverage away from those who need it most, Senator Hassan highlighted the importance of safeguarding protections for people with pre-existing conditions and lowering the skyrocketing cost of prescription drugs.

The Senator has called on Granite Staters and Americans to continue speaking out and sharing their own stories about what protections for pre-existing conditions mean to them in order to stand up against dangerous efforts from the Trump Administration to pull the country backward. To view some of these health care stories from Granite Staters, visit Senator Hassan’s Instagram here.

See below for highlights of the coverage, or click here:

Seacoast Online: Families talk health-care concerns with Sen. Hassan

PORTSMOUTH -- As constituents shared some of their most intimate and personal battles with health diagnoses ranging from epilepsy to a rare one-in-10,000 condition, Sen. Maggie Hassan said she and many of her colleagues are consistently battling backdoor efforts by the Trump administration to undermine the Affordable Care Act.

Derry resident Kristen Sheppard held up a tote bag filled to the brim with prescription medications, the thousands of capsules shaking in their bottles. She was diagnosed with Alpha-1 Antitrypsin Deficiency a year-and-a-half ago, a prognosis that “completely changed my life.” She and her husband, Jeremy, attended Friday’s roundtable conversation with Hassan, D-N.H., at Popovers on the Square, where a small group discussed their chronic health conditions and disabilities.

Hassan recently questioned Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar when he testified before the Senate Health Education, Labor and Pensions Committee on the Trump administration’s efforts to eliminate protections for pre-existing conditions through the courts. Hassan has worked to safeguard protections for people with pre-existing conditions, and to lower the rising costs of prescription drugs. 

…“Like everybody at this table, I have experienced the best and the worst of our health care system,” she said, adding Ben might not be alive today without particular improvements in prescription drugs.

The group focused much of its conversation Friday on the ever-rising costs of medications and inconsistencies with health insurance.

…Hassan said over the last year, the personal stories of Americans’ experiences with various health conditions have lent greatly to the health care fight in Washington. She encouraged constituents to continue to share their hardships and roadblocks with elected officials. 

“Millions of people with chronic illnesses and disabilities have stories to tell,” she said. “We don’t want to go back to a time where you can’t get health care with a pre-existing condition.” 

In the Senate, she said, she continues to have to be “very vigilant,” and while she and many of her colleagues are looking to improve health care in the United States, “we’re still playing defense.” 

“We are facing a situation where the administration has been sabotaging the Affordable Care Act behind the scenes,” she said.

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